nother hit in George Clooney’s current run of politically relevant movies, Michael Clayton features strong performances, a solid story and provides the Cloonster with his juiciest role yet. He, of course, is the titular character Michael Clayton, a jaundiced grunt attorney in a powerful Manhattan law firm - the kind of smiling, silky and seedy "janitor" who works behind the scenes and cleans up the mess before it hits the papers.

This corporate thriller - directed as well as written by Tony Gilroy, the screenwriter of the Bourne films - pivots around a $3 billion class-action suit, after law firm Kenner, Bach & Leeden's most valuable lawyer, Arthur Edens (Tom Wilkinson), has a breakdown that puts a lucrative case in jeopardy.

There’s a wonderful, snappy bravado and self-aware charmer's glint intact behind Clooney’s most gregarious back slapping.

Edens had been defending a nasty chemical company from a lawsuit filed by farmers poisoned by one of its lethal pesticides. So, having sold his soul to the corporate devil for so long defending an agri-pharmaceutical company whose product, he now realizes, has been poisoning people in precisely the way the class-action plaintiffs allege, he now seeks the truth as much to redeem his own life. But after he goes psycho in the courtroom, it’s up to legal fixer Michael Clayton to clean up the mess. But, soon he's facing off with the chemical company's chief counsel, Karen Crowder (a riveting Tilda Swinton).

Clayton’s own personal life is in tatters; divorced and trying to scramble together a few thousand dollars to pay off his brother's gambling debt, his soul is empty and a late-night gambling addiction has shackled him to a dangerous debt. And, while on location fixing another client's vehicle accident woes, his car blows up - someone is trying to kill him. It is at this low point that he faces the trickiest moment of his professional career: covering up Edens' larger-than-life nervous breakdown.

Rather than a corporate conspiracy thriller, the movie is more a character study showing the disruptive effect of years of swallowed disappointment. But this is really Clooney’s stage here. One could make the case that he’s just playing a GQ version of his disillusioned Syriana role, but it seems to work for him.

There’s a refreshing bravado and charmer's glint intact behind Clooney’s unreserved back slapping. His character is the kind of guy who sacrificed everything for his career and realized too late it was a bum deal. It's an arresting performance to be sure - muscular and pain-racked to the core.