Most screenwriters don't have what it takes to shoot a story with the appropriate rhythm. The problem is they like words, words feel nice on paper and they end up over-burdening the director since words don't necessarily translate well in terms of visual and space narratives.
Michael Clayton and Duplicity were two movies with a very interesting premise, a promising cast, and a very unimpressive result. So I guess it has something to do with Tony Gilroy. From the very first scenes I felt something important was ill-executed in Michael Clayton. First there's this very annoying, forced, voice-over which really gets us to a very bad start. It reminded me of the introductory v-o narration in the documentary Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, except there the rhythm picked up and in the end it was a great thriller of a documentary. Then you have some low-key exposition - something screenwriters are deeply proud of, and they sometimes are trying too hard to be subtle, esp. as screenwriter-directors, taking all their time to be subtle. The poker scene should have been a key feature in the exposition, but it feels like a totally irrelevant scene. You don't feel how much Michael Clayton (George Clooney) was/is addicted to gambling, you only get clues that he used to gamble at some other, nicer, place, that he's done bad business as owner of a bar. Low-key, subtle touches but visually it's dumb, uninteresting, uneventful, which is correlated with the fact it wastes time, not advancing efficiently key plot elements.
First-reel contact is really bad, and there are no signs it's just a matter of bad introductory choices. Instead, as in 99% of such ill-conceived movies, it's a matter of initial poor choices that will linger on the rest of the movie. The story of Michael Clayton is mostly one big 4-day flashback with a prologue and an epilogue. The prologue is slow, devoid of "plot peaks" that could titillate our interest -- forget about building suspense. Low-skills directors mistake suspense for heavy atmosphere, slow narration, and we get more of the latter in the flashback.
Disjointed narrative, no sense of immediacy or urgency, no time or space or psychological pressure, the hero is just bullied around in the story. Think of the difference between a tense atmosphere and a character that just moves around somewhat ill-at-ease for nothing seems right in his life. That is the technical assessment of this movie. Now the conclusion is fast, at last, but nothing was right in making us crave for it. it's just edited in at the end, like an clean and sharp attachment to a long and tedious email.
Now you can't blame the technical crew, they did a great job but you really have to think of it when you're watching a boring movie. There's a good cast too for sure, but I was not impressed by George Clooney since his character was so little interesting. Now he was involved in the production and he must have thought this was a deep likable torn-apart character, so he is largely to blame here for the decisions made upfront. At the end of the day the premise was interesting but most conspiracy movies from the 70s are more interesting, faster than this.
Michael Clayton and Duplicity were two movies with a very interesting premise, a promising cast, and a very unimpressive result. So I guess it has something to do with Tony Gilroy. From the very first scenes I felt something important was ill-executed in Michael Clayton. First there's this very annoying, forced, voice-over which really gets us to a very bad start. It reminded me of the introductory v-o narration in the documentary Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, except there the rhythm picked up and in the end it was a great thriller of a documentary. Then you have some low-key exposition - something screenwriters are deeply proud of, and they sometimes are trying too hard to be subtle, esp. as screenwriter-directors, taking all their time to be subtle. The poker scene should have been a key feature in the exposition, but it feels like a totally irrelevant scene. You don't feel how much Michael Clayton (George Clooney) was/is addicted to gambling, you only get clues that he used to gamble at some other, nicer, place, that he's done bad business as owner of a bar. Low-key, subtle touches but visually it's dumb, uninteresting, uneventful, which is correlated with the fact it wastes time, not advancing efficiently key plot elements.
First-reel contact is really bad, and there are no signs it's just a matter of bad introductory choices. Instead, as in 99% of such ill-conceived movies, it's a matter of initial poor choices that will linger on the rest of the movie. The story of Michael Clayton is mostly one big 4-day flashback with a prologue and an epilogue. The prologue is slow, devoid of "plot peaks" that could titillate our interest -- forget about building suspense. Low-skills directors mistake suspense for heavy atmosphere, slow narration, and we get more of the latter in the flashback.
Disjointed narrative, no sense of immediacy or urgency, no time or space or psychological pressure, the hero is just bullied around in the story. Think of the difference between a tense atmosphere and a character that just moves around somewhat ill-at-ease for nothing seems right in his life. That is the technical assessment of this movie. Now the conclusion is fast, at last, but nothing was right in making us crave for it. it's just edited in at the end, like an clean and sharp attachment to a long and tedious email.
Now you can't blame the technical crew, they did a great job but you really have to think of it when you're watching a boring movie. There's a good cast too for sure, but I was not impressed by George Clooney since his character was so little interesting. Now he was involved in the production and he must have thought this was a deep likable torn-apart character, so he is largely to blame here for the decisions made upfront. At the end of the day the premise was interesting but most conspiracy movies from the 70s are more interesting, faster than this.