By Rob Lowman > Entertainment Editor

'Michael Clayton'
With a tricky narrative, "Michael Clayton" is a legal thriller that's a morality play in which there is very little moraltity. George Clooney plays the title character, — a fixer for a powerful law firm. Somewhere in his career he lost his conscience, and now, calling himself a janitor and in debt for a bad investment and calling himself a janitor, he handles cases with the right payoff or whatever is needed (legal or barely legal) before they hit the courtroom.

It's an ugly life. He knows it and hates himself for it. When his friend Arthur (Tom Wilkinson), another of the firm's lawyers who is supposed to be tidying up a multibillion-dollar class-action suit against an agrochemical company, has a breakdown, Michael is sent to tidy him up. Arthur's boss, Karen Crowder (Tilda Swinton), though, is worried, though, because the agri firm has something to hide.

Written and directed by Tony Gilroy (scripter on "The Devil's Advocate" and the "Bourne" films), "Michael Clayton" goes down a lot of treacherous streets, but some of them end up cul de sacs. Clooney bears his role with the approriate world-weariness and with enough roiling underneath that when his character comes to life fires up it isn't totally out of place. Wilkinson, as usual, cuts to the heart of his role, and Swinton's makes the most of a nasty but thankless part as the banality personification of evil.

If Gilroy hadn't been so anxious to tie things up and had explored thecharacters more, "Michael Clayton" might have been a terrific film. — as it is, it's still entertaining.

Iraq War films
The Iraq War and 9/11 continues to raise questions and engage filmmakers' imaginations, however,but the public is indifferent. Unfortunately, some of the movies raise some important questions and are even — to varying degrees — interesting.

Gavin Hood's "Rendition" tries to use a big star to lure you in: — Reese Witherspoon (right), who plays a very pregnant Isabella. She is married to Anwar El-Ibrahimi (Omar Metwally), an mid-30s Egypt-born engineer in his 30s who has lived in the United States 20 years.

When he receives a cell phone call on his way back to the States from a cell phone "believed" to have once been in the hands of a terrorist, the U.S. government grabs him at a Washington, D.C., airport and transports him to a North African country to be tortured for information. This practice of rendition allows the U.S. government to not officially get its hands dirty while, hopefullyit is hoped, getting the information it needs.

At the heart of the film is theis question,: iIs the abuse of the innocent worth it if the practice saves lives.? The film tackles the question from different angles — those who implement the policy (Meryl Streep's member of the administration), those who are against it but know how the wind is blowing (Alan Arkin's senator and Peter Sarsgaard as his aide), those who watch but feel powerless (Jake Gyllenhaal's CIA agent), the torturers (Igal Naor's police chief) and, of course, the victims.

"Rendition" has its moments but tries to make things too neat in the end, which is part of its failing. Too bad, because the question remains.

In "In the Valley of Elah," Tommy Lee Jones plays Hank, a retired military police officer "In the Valley of Elah" who learns that his son, an Army specialist recently returned from Iraq, has gone AWOL and later turns up dead, his charred body found in the desert. Hank, aided by a detective (Charlize Theron), sets out to find the truth.

While the crime film by Paul Haggis ("Crash") is not directly about Iraq, — the hangover from the war preermeates the air, and the Oscar-nominated Jones gives a superb performance.

Brian De Palma's "Redacted," a prize winner at the Venice Film Festival, tackles the Iraq War in a highly stylized fashion. The rape and murder of an Iraqi girl and the killing of her family is told from multiple perspectives.

The most intimate is from Angel Salazar (Izzy Diaz), a soldier who dreams of getting himself into film school with the video diary he is shooting of himself and his unit. There is also a French documentary film crew embedded with the U.S. soldiers. (De Palma does a wonderful parody of a tres serious French doc.) Surveillance cameras also capture moments, as well as the terrorists releasing video on the iInternet.

While De Palma's aim is to provoke, it's too bad that despite how much of it has a ripped-from-the-headlines accuracy, little of it seems real. The soldiers come across less as G.I. Joes than actors doing an acting exercise.

While the bitter speech at the end ofby a returning soldier breaking down during the celebration of his engagement seems like it could be true — especially given real interviews I've seen — you can't shake the fact that it's a film.

'American Gangster'
Ridley Scott's "American Gangster" captures the contradictions of the true story of 1970s New York drug lord Frank Lucas' life. Played powerfully, by Denzel Washington, Lucas embodieds the quintessential American success story, pulling himself out of poverty and sharing his wealth with his family and neighbors. He didoes it, however, in another familiar American (and film genre) fashion — as a crime lord.

Unlike the mob family heads in "The Sopranos" and "The Godfather," whose heads of mob families are haunted survivors, Lucas — who sees himself as strictly a businessman, shunning the the flaymont dress of a rival (Cuba Gooding Jr.),. bBut he — is headed for a fall. It's Russell Crowe's New Jersey cop, Richie Roberts, who will eventually bring him down, but not before the pair have another ofsome tense moments, complicated by the presence of a crooked cop (Josh Brolin in a terrific performance).

It's interesting that in his career, Scott — the former an art-school grad — has been criticized for being overly meticulous (too perfect?) in his shots. That's a bit flip. Scott seems to be going for the long haul. Inevitably, even with films to which I have been lukewarm at first about, I find more and more to appreciate in them on subsequent viewings, even if some of their problems don't go away completely. "Amerciican Gangster," though, is a film that will grab you from the first, and further viewings will likely only enhance it.

Gems
Audacious, irreverent, brilliant are perhaps the best ways to describe Jean-Luc Godard. Challenging is another. The French director's 1966 "Pierrot le Fou" is a bit of a gangster film (Godard always loved playing off Hollywood genres) with Jean-Paul Belmondo dumping his wife for a girlfriend (Anna Karina) who has apparently killed someone. The pair then go on the lam. Any resemblance to a genre film, though, is purely coincidental. Godard's genius is showing you what you'd least expect or, better still,— not showing you what you'd expect, forcing you to think about what you're seeing.

Anyone interested in Helen Mirren's development as actress can check out "Helen Mirren at the BBC," which includes 11 tele-plays she was in on the British network from the mid-''70s to the early ''80s.

Rob Lowman, (818) 713-3687

NEW FILMS
"American Gangster — Two-Disc Collector's Edition" ($29.98, three-disc deluxe edition $34.98 and $39.98 for HD)
"Michael Clayton" ($28.98 and $35.99 for Blu-ray)
"Lust, Caution" (R or NC-17 Edition $29.98)
"In the Valley of Elah" ($27.98 and $35.99 for Blu-ray)
"Rendition" ($28.98)
"Margot at the Wedding" ($29.99)
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