Michael Clayton

Roles

• Michael
• Clayton
• Karen
• Crowder

About this piece

Michael Clayton frames Karen Crowder at the end of the movie

Summary

Arthur Edens (Tom Wilkinson) is a brilliant attorney at a high priced law firm who is representing a shady chemical company (where Karen Crowder works) in a multi-billion dollar lawsuit. He is also a manic depressive-schizophrenic and when he fails to take the medication he has a breakdown during a meeting where he strips naked. He then decides to build a case against the company he was representing and becomes a danger to the law firm and the chemical company. Arthur calls one of the plaintiffs in the case to help her in the lawsuit against the company and his law firm finds out since they are tapping his phone. He disappears and they send Michael Clayton, the company's "fixer", problem solver and Arthur's long time friend, to find him and get him to reason. He finds him and tries to get him to reason but Arthur decides to go ahead with his case against the chemical company. Karen Crowder, who is one of the managers in the chemical company, hires contract killers to kill Arthur Edens and make it look like a suicide. Arthur is killed and the police thinks that he killed himself or that was an accident. Michael Clayton believes there's more to it and starts investigating. The killers try to bomb his car but he survives. Everybody thinks that he is dead. In this scene, the last of the movie, Michael Clayton confronts Karen Crowder in the hallway of an empty theater where the company is having a meeting. She is very surprised to see him. He tells her he knows what happened, he knows how her company poisoned hundreds of people, how she tried to cover it up and how she killed Arthur. He tells her he wants money to keep him quiet . He wants 10 million dollars. They then agree on 5 million but it turns out he was wired and he just made her confess. The police arrive and arrest her.

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