It's better than good; it's such a crackling and mature and accomplished movie that it just about restores your faith.
90
L.A. WeeklyElla Taylor
L.A. WeeklyElla Taylor
This loving throwback to the paranoid thrillers of the ’70s is a beauty.
88
Rolling StonePeter Travers
Rolling StonePeter Travers
Deliberate, demanding and character-driven, Michael Clayton flies in the face of what sells at the multiplex. I couldn't have liked it more.
88
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
Michael Clayton is a here’s-how-it-happened drama, cleverly but not over-elaborately structured.
80
The Hollywood ReporterKirk Honeycutt
The Hollywood ReporterKirk Honeycutt
As with the Bourne films, Gilroy has a knack for creating strong characters and situations that resonate with tension. It may be formula, but the guy is a solid chemist as he crafts excellent set-ups and payoffs.
Gilroy's up to the challenge, as is his uniformly astounding cast--Clooney, especially, as the charmed and charming man stripped of his superpowers, but also Wilkinson and Swinton as the mirror images of each other.
Features strong performances and a solid story, drawn from the familiar well of faceless corporations grinding ordinary people through their profit-making machinery. Yet Gilroy's fidelity to his script comes at the expense of the pacing.