Are corporations villainous? After covering them for twenty years or so and almost always being employed by one, I’d have to say no, they’re not. Seeing the new George Clooney suspense thriller Michael Clayton, however, is enough to convince someone already willing to think otherwise. It’s a spooky, powerful, at times difficult to watch film about a guy who works for a law firm that defends a truly evil company — and the even more venal people who run it. To tell you just how bad these folks are would spoil some of the key plot turns. Here’s how the review in The New York Time describes the movie: “It’s a story about ethics and their absence, a slow-to-boil requiem for American decency in which George Clooney, the ultimate in luxury brands and playboy of the Western world, raises the sword in the name of truth and justice and good.”
I saw Michael Clayton this weekend. You walk out thinking that Enron and Worldcom were just the tip of the iceberg, that Jeff Skilling and Bernie Ebbers were pikers, in fact. Then again, that’s Hollywood. There are bad folks everywhere, including at corporations. It doesn’t mean all the suits are evil.
One other thought without spoiling things for people who haven’t seen the movie yet. A character in the story is faced with such pressure over her decisions in her job that she can barely breathe and suffers from cold sweats. Anyone who has awakened at 5 a.m. dreading the work day will relate. Here’s some advice: No matter how bad it gets, don’t do what she does!