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‘Clayton’ a brilliant morality tale

Up in the rare air where the masters of the universe play, Arthur Edens, the brilliant senior litigator for a high-powered New York law firm, has spent six years defending a corporate megaclient by interminably dragging out a multibillion-dollar class-action lawsuit.

Amid yet another routine deposition, Edens (the great Tom Wilkinson) suddenly wigs out, stripping to his birthday suit and ranting nonsensically before running away into a snowy parking lot.

OK, so how would you react if you suddenly learned the honchos of United Northfield, the giant chemical company you’ve defended for so long, have suppressed data from their scientists clearly indicating that their most lucrative product, a farm-crop weed killer, gives people cancer as easily as they catch colds?

That’s the dilemma at the heart of “Michael Clayton,” an intricate morality tale that puts a fresh, razor-sharp spin on the age-old question: What price would you be willing to put on your own humanity?

But Edens is merely first in line for that searing self-examination; the most prominent soul up for grabs here belongs to his good friend, the film’s title character.

Michael Clayton (George Clooney) is a former trial attorney who has spent well over a decade as the in-house “fixer” at Edens’ firm. Clayton is called in when, say, a fat-cat client hits a jogger with his Jaguar and then flees, because he invariably knows a guy who knows a guy who can quietly sweep the mess under the rug.

Painfully aware of his status — “I’m not a miracle worker, I’m a janitor,” he says wearily — Clayton also carries plenty of personal baggage. He’s a divorced father of a young son, has a gambling problem under only tenuous control, and is $75,000 in debt after his alcoholic brother flushed away the restaurant and bar business in which they had invested as partners.

So Clayton is close to flameout when the United Northfield mess is dropped in his lap. And when he learns what made Edens go bonkers and try to switch teams, he knows he’s at his own personal crossroads, and the next step he takes will likely seal his fate.

Writer Tony Gilroy, who penned the taut scripts to all three “Bourne” films, moves up to pull double duty here in also making his directorial debut, and he smashes it out of the park.

Every scene, every bit of dialogue crackles, particularly those involving Clayton and his opposite number, Karen Crowder (an intense Tilda Swinton), United Northfield’s top legal shark, who searches her soul for about 10 seconds before deciding she’s up for anything — including murder — to bury the heinous crimes of her employer.

Clooney delivers a knockout, Oscar-caliber performance, diving straight to the raw core of his complex character and reminding us of how great he can be when not loafing in his smirky “movie star” mode.

But he gets lots of help, not only from Wilkinson and Swinton but also from savvy old pro Sydney Pollack as the law firm’s senior partner. They all know Gilroy has handed them some juicy red meat, and they hungrily wolf it down, right up to the whipsaw climax that will make your heart sink one moment and soar the next.

“Michael Clayton” is the latest in an unusually rich post-summer crop of intelligent films (“The Brave One,” “Eastern Promises,” “In the Valley of Elah,” the forthcoming “Reservation Road” and “We Own the Night”) aimed squarely at adults and driven by story and character rather than skull-splitting explosions and gross bodily functions.

Enjoy it while it lasts.

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Rated R for language, violence.

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