Alaska Employment Law

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The Cast

George Clooney (Mickey)
Tilda Swinton (Karen)
Sidney Pollack (Marty)
Tom Wilkinson (Arthur)

The Summation: You are supposed to like this film. There is an all-star cast, great performances, and nice packaging. However, the script is blah and dated, and filmed 15 years too late.

The Caution: This review contains spoilers. Do not read if you intend to pay money to see this movie. Disclosures being written, spoiler follows …

The Review:  Lawyers are evil. Oh, and big corporations are, too. In fact, really good production values go a long way to disguise a straight forward plot fronted by Hollywood’s chosen son. I will confess to entering the film in defensive mode, having received an assignment to watch a film “with interesting portrayals of attorneys.” That being said, I determined to watch the film with an open mind. Imagine my relief when the film was bad, objectively!  This is a movie about a giant farm-chemical company involved in 15-year class action, and the lawyers who love it (or, as we are reminded several times, love the money they make from the company). The plot here is not essential, because the movie really is a study of stereotypes. For that reason, no doubt, the plot itself is predictable, perhaps written 15 years ago when “evil chemical companies” were in vogue (I believe the evil company du jour is an oil company; even Halliburton is passé).

The plot has shades of The Pelican Brief, The Firm, and Erin Brockovich, updated for today’s educational level. Of course there must be a “smoking gun” memo, and we are rewarded fairly early in. Unlike The Pelican Brief (itself more a vehicle for Julia Roberts in braids than a legal intrigue film), the complicated evidence of corporate conspiracy here is not included in a brief with footnotes and then voiced over footage of wetlands and birds. With due regard for the moronification of the audience, here the memo is very short and to the point. It reads something like this (and I am not making this up).

To: Corporate Executive-Types
From: Head Scientist
Re: Deadly chemical used for crops/CYA Memo

The subject chemical is colorless, odorless, tasteless, and very evil. I’ve tested it and it can be really deadly to humans, especially those who live on small farms that use wells for their water source. However, I know that you spent a lot of money, so if you want me to [tamper with the test results, hide the evidence, or otherwise make it look pretty], I need you to specifically authorize me to continue. Please sign below.

The memo is duly signed by key executives, including “Don, CEO.” Tidy. The memo evidently has not been disclosed in the previous 10 years of litigation. Tidier. Plot out of the way, what do we do with these pesky lawyers? Oh, that’s right, set phasers to vilify!

Arthur Edens is a “brilliant quirky litigator,” conveniently labeled manic-depressive (again reflecting the out of date sticker; I believe the new phrase is “bi-polar”). Arthur has a crisis of conscience at a deposition, declares his love for the deponent/class member, strips naked in front of one and all, and (evidently) winds up chasing everyone in the parking garage wearing nothing but his socks. No footage shown, regrettably. Arthur also has a fondness for multiple baguettes, and, in his spare time away from the toxic tort litigation, is an expert on New York State’s involuntary commitment statutes and procedures. Unfortunately, you never get to see the “he was an evil bastard just last week” side of him, because he now is trying to do the right thing. 

Karen Crowder is a “brilliant, mean, and sweaty in an unpretty way” in-house counsel who finds the memo.  We first see her checking her sweaty armpits in a bathroom stall. I did not make that up. I had some hope she would be sympathetic. She still practices her answers to interview questions, and wears cheap hosiery and ugly suits, all in spite of her obvious power role as Senior Counsel in a company with employees in “75 countries across the planet.” However, Crowder quickly is written down into the stereotypical “feminist overcompensating” female lawyer. When she discovers the memo, she makes no nod to Sarbannes-Oxley (despite her obvious competence), and follows her gut instinct to hire wiretapping mercenary bombmaking golfers instead.  Oh, how quickly the mighty fall.

A comment on the wiretapping mercenary bombmaking golfers. They both are blond and eerily similar in appearance. They also look a lot like Barry, another partner in Marty’s firm, trotted out in main part to be the bad cop to Marty’s good. Maybe Barry was the golfer, or maybe he was golfing with the mercenaries. This is a confusing point for me.

The most ambiguous lawyer in the bunch is Marty Bach. He at first appears to be the “brilliant, friendly, really likeable boss-type who has a nice house and is not bothered by ethics” lawyer. Played likeably by Sydney Pollack, he appears in at least four deleted scenes that made him look more evil. His lack of ethics is barely hinted at but obvious to a trained audience member (you!). Marty knows about the memo and much of the subsequent client shenanigans, but it does not bother him. He is more worried about the client’s hint it will not pay the bill if Arthur is not contained. Moving on, Scotch consumed, how do we contain Arthur? Oh, let’s get the fixer.

The fixer. This is the guy we are supposed to root for, if not feel sorry for. He is the “brilliant, unhappy, conflicted” lawyer who really hates himself but needs some money so he works as a “fixer.” This is Micky, or Mike, or Michael Clayton. I would have liked to like him, but he is just so damned stupid. A former ADA in Manhattan, Micky veered into the “not really practicing law” part of practicing law for reasons we never learn.   Micky is called the fixer in the opening scene, by one of the nerds from Revenge of the Nerds, no less! Micky has hit rock bottom in the first 10 minutes! (I must say the Nerd has aged amazingly well and with smaller teeth).  Fixer status is partially reinforced by a later scene of Micky talking on the phone to various clients, but he’s not very dynamic about it; I expected something a bit more smarmy or strutworthy, but maybe that is the point. Also, you never see Micky greasing the skids of others, so how does he keep the connections happy? Not very believable, but we do worry about ole Mick, since he made ill-advised investment of his savings and now owes money. Note to self: when trying to develop savings account for retirement, do not invest in bar with drug-addled brother. Micky never figures out there is a plot at hand until the last part of the movie, and even then, he is pretty laconic about it, and makes sure he gets paid first. It appears the loss of Micky’s car is the trigger for the whuppun, so it is hard to care much about the final 15 minutes of “what is Micky going to do now” suspense. 

A note on Clooney: he consistently makes good script and movie choices, notwithstanding the commercial pabulum (sp?) of the Oceans series. Even Solarus, a box-office and critical disappointment, was not a bad movie, just a loooong movie, more in the tradition of 2001 than Star Trek. We simply do not have the attention spans required to watch movies like that anymore: dialogue, dialogue, long periods of mechanical humming, dialogue. I doubt that 2001 would be a well received now. Clooney never is the don of subtlety, so it is fairly fortunate there are long scenes of him brooding over his life. I can see the note to the casting agent: few lines, brown eyes needed.

Pollack likely will get an Oscar nod for this one (itself a dubious honor). Pollack simply is damn likeable, mostly because Marty’s unseemly behavior is never seen, rarely implicated, and not discussed (although you just know he is busy stabbing backs, abandoning friends, breaking laws and various and assorted other wrongdoing). Compared to Marty, the rest of the characters are monkeys in a cage, doing their dance, but not an interesting one, not even a dance with a risk of feces-throwing (common to the monkey and stereotypical lawyer).

A stereotype not glaring in its omission was the “harried and good-hearted public interest attorney.” I do not see how they could squeeze such a character into this film, but I suppose Arthur did because he was harried (predictably “off his meds”), tries to do the right thing (good-hearted this week), and lives in a ratty loft with no furniture. The writers did include one scene with “young, clueless, and too many associates for one out-of-state deposition,” but they thankfully did not repeat that again. It might have been interesting for the writers to add a “completely incompetent and everybody knows it” attorney, or even a “fair to middlin’ Red Sox Fan” attorney, but no such creativity here.

I do not see movies very often, so when I do, I want them to be worth my time. I cannot say that this was a bad script; just predictable. I cannot say that this was a poorly-made movie, because it was well-made with appropriate dreary music. The movie just does not stick with me.  It’s like a bowl of Sugar Pops when you are craving pork chops and eggs from the Waffle House. I can barely remember the movie three days later, and forgot the title within 20 minutes of leaving the theatre (is it Michael Clayton or Michael Crawford?). I am, however, looking forward to the Nicholson/Freeman “buddy flick for the geriatric set” that previewed immediately before the movie. The fact that I’ll admit to that in a public forum should not be a comment on my taste for movies (c’mon! I watch foreign films and classic BBC!), but a hint to the comparative value of formulaic legal thriller with formulaic Nich flick.