"Michael Clayton" *** (out of four): Solid, complex character study from the team that's single-handedly championing the genre. This one finds the ever-improving George Clooney as a legal "fixer".

"I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore". Even the most casual cineaste will recognize Howard Beale’s oft-quoted rant from 1976’s biting television satire "Network". "Michael Clayton" - Tony Gilroy's solid if not quite thrilling legal drama - aims to do for law firms what "Network" did for TV stations. But instead of a raving news anchor (played to perfection by Peter Finch) we have senior litigator Arthur Edens (played by an equally memorable Tom Wilkinson). And instead of ranting, Arthur strips. Arthur's mad as hell, alright, and he proves it by going all Full Monty during a client's deposition and monologuing about being part of a "sickness". It becomes pretty clear pretty quickly that Arthur has a lot to be sick over. His firm, Kenner, Bach & Ledeen, is involved in a multi-billion dollar class action suit on the side of U/North, an agrochemical company with some toxic skeletons in its closet.

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