4 stars for a tight film. George Clooney plays a high-priced "fixer" or "janitor" as he likes to call himself. When his law firm's clients get in trouble, they call him to clean things up nice and quiet-like. Hit and runs, sex scandals, you name it, Clayton's fixed it. The trouble is, he's been doing this for 13 years now, and it's just not fulfilling anymore. He's divorced with a son who wants nothing more than his dad's attention, but when work calls, Dad goes on the clock -- usually at 3am.

The story gets going when we find out that one of their all-star defense lawyers, Arthur Edens (played perfectly by Tom Wilkinson), basically snaps and goes a little nuts. After decades of defending the crooked and slimy underbelly of corporate America, Arthur has had enough. His current case is defending a major agro-chemical corp (U-North) accused of negligent poisoning in a class-action lawsuit. Arthur knows they're guilty and his conscious won't let him defend them a second longer.

In steps Clayton to "fix" Arthur's public display of insanity and also to try to help his old friend. Arthur and Clayton go way back, and Clayton just wants Arthur to get back on his meds and slip quietly into the night. But Arthur's conscious is too moral for that now. He wants to reveal the crimes of U-North to the public. In steps U-North's CEO Karen Crowder (Tilda Swinton). She's as cold as they get. Nothing is going to bring down her company, especially not some whack-job lawyer. That's when things get tough. She'll do anything to save her company from this lawsuit that would cost them millions and ultimately destroy them. Clayton spends the film trying to save his friend Arthur while slowly finding out the truth about U-North.

I'm not sure George Clooney will ever be an Oscar-worthy performer, but he holds his own, and then some. You can't really fault the guy for being charming -- he just is. But, to his defense, he's able to tone down the charm that often gets him in trouble on screen long enough for us to actually care about the mid-life and employment crisis Clayton is going through. None of us really know what it's like to be a high-priced "fixer" but we can understand what it's like to feel unfulfilled and sometimes immoral while serving our less-than-clean employers.

Michael Clayton won't blow you away, but it's a tight story that needs lots of brain power to get through. Pay attention to every detail -- both visual and spoken -- because characters and references come up subtly and you'll need to assemble them later in your head. Even though there's some heavy-lifting involved, the end result is plenty satisfying as Clayton decides what ultimately must be done. What's more important to Michael Clayton; the cash, or justice?