I rewatched Michael Clayton (2007) and it was better than I remembered. It’s basically the skin of a legal thriller running around on the bones of a noir. And it has really distinctive aesthetic brought by Robert Elswit (the same year of his work that overshadowed this, There Will Be Blood). I think what makes Michael Clayton stand out among the amorphous blob of neo-noirs that exist, outside of maybe Chinatown, is the fact that the heavy here is a corporation.
Anyway, it’s a good excuse to shout “I’m Shiva, the god of death” at people and have it be an innocuous reference and not a delusional threat.
