Blu-ray Review: Michael Clayton

THE MOVIE: 5 stars out of 5

It is rare that I give a movie 5 stars out of 5 but this film sure is deserving of such a rating. Michael Clayton stars George Clooney as a fix it man at a prestigious New York law firm who is in charge of cleaning up messes that develop involving lawyers at the firm as well as clients. It so happens that a huge problem develops with the firm’s top litigator who is defending a $3 billion class action lawsuit on behalf of a large chemical company whose product is accused of causing cancer. This litigator, a close friend of Michael Clayton is actually in the process of attempting to expose the truth behind the effect of the chemical his client has produced when he has a mental breakdown. In the process of helping his friend, Michael Clayton discovers the secret that his friend was attempting to disclose, putting his own life in danger.

Michael Clayton has been nominated for 7 Academy Awards, including George Clooney for best actor, Tom Wilkinson for best supporting actor, Tilda Swinton for best supporting actress, Tony Gilroy for best screenplay and Achievement in Music for James Newton Howard for his original score. All of these awards are richly deserved as the acting in this film is uniformly excellent as is the screenplay which produces a riveting narrative that pulls you right into the film the whole way through. This is filmmaking at its best. Highly recommended.

THE VIDEO: 45/8 stars out of 5

Michael Clayton is encoded with VC-1 and presented here on a BD-25 disc at its original aspect ratio of 2:40:1. The good news is that this is an excellent looking transfer. The film boasts a very natural looking color palette with spot on skin tones. Black levels are deep giving the film a three dimensional look. The overall image is very sharp and detailed with good shadow detail. The image really pops off the screen. On the downside, there is some noise in the darker scenes in the film of which there are many. However, the noise is not very intrusive and did not detract from my enjoyment of the film or the encode and will really only be noticeable on large screens or for those of you out there that sit very close to your screens. All in all, this encode is the quality that one would expect for a film of this import.

THE AUDIO: 4 stars out of 5

While I loved the video encode on this release, I was somewhat disappointed in the audio. Not that the audio is bad, far from it. It is just that I would have expected a lossless track for such a major release. Instead, the release is provided with a Dolby Digital track encoded at 640 kbps. On the upside, the dialogue is clear and distinct and well placed in the mix and is never difficult to follow which is important given that Michael Clayton is a dialogue driven film. Bass response is excellent as well, with a thumping score that adds to the tension on screen. On the downside, the film is very front heavy with only sporadic use of the surrounds. The overall sound of the film is rather flat lacking the ambiance and immersion of the best encodes. You really don’t feel as though you are in the room with the actors at any time during the movie, unlike a film such as Gone Baby Gone which has a wonderfully immersive uncompressed PCM track. Not being familiar with the sound of the master, I can only surmise that the audio on this release would have really benefitted from either a PCM or a Dolby Digital True HD encode. While the audio on this release is enjoyable, I kept wondering what it would have been with either a lossless track or a full bit rate Dolby DIgital Plus track.

IN CONCLUSION

This an excellent film with a very good video encode and good audio. It is a must buy for movie fans everywhere. Highly recommended.

For more high-def news and views, please click: TVPredictions.com.