The Big Picture · Discussion

4. ‘Michael Clayton’ and ‘Chop Shop’ | Mission Accomplished

August 22, 2025/ 45 min/ Brian Raftery

Two New York movies from the tail end of the Bush years: Tony Gilroy's Oscar-winning law-firm thriller 'Michael Clayton,' with George Clooney as a fixer who runs out of ways to look away, and Ramin Bharani's tiny Queens drama 'Chop Shop,' about a 12-year-old hustling to buy a food van. Brian Raftery traces how the recession and the war shaped both, with franchises taking over the studios, then closes on the class of 2007.

14 films across 3 segments.

AI-generated This episode was transcribed and analyzed with AI models. The matches aren't perfect — expect the occasional misheard title or a link to the wrong film.

‘Michael Clayton’Tony Gilroy's directing debut

Michael Clayton 2007

Gilroy's first film as director, born from a law-firm research trip for 'Devil's Advocate,' where he noticed the real work happened behind the empty wood-paneled conference rooms. Clooney as a mid-level fixer at a Manhattan firm, $80,000 in debt from a failed restaurant, cleaning up a billion-dollar case built on a 'bad document' modeled on a real 1973 GM memo that found it cheaper to pay death benefits than fix cars that were catching fire. Clooney waived his fee to get it made and Gilroy took no money either. It made $50M and won Tilda Swinton an Oscar. The two-minute closing shot on Clooney's face in the back of a cab came together at the last minute, over studio pushback for a happier ending.

The Devil's Advocate 1997

Taylor Hackford's thriller with Al Pacino as the head of a Manhattan law firm who's also the Devil. Gilroy wrote it, and the tour of real New York firms he did for research gave him the fixer idea that became 'Michael Clayton.'

The Parallax View 1974

Alan J. Pakula's paranoia thriller, Warren Beatty as a reporter chasing a string of political assassinations. One of the tough 1970s studio dramas Gilroy watched as 'intensifying mirrors' of a country going wrong.

Save the Tiger 1973

Jack Lemmon as a middle-aged businessman $300,000 in debt and rethinking his life. Another 70s drama of economic disorientation Gilroy drew on.

Ocean's Eleven 2001

Cited for the Clooney persona Gilroy wanted, a guy down on his luck who never gives up. Clooney passed twice before signing on, wary of a first-time director; a switch of agencies finally got him to read it.

The Graduate 1967

One of the films whose closing close-up, a character quietly questioning their own fate, Gilroy reached for when he had no ending for Clayton.

The Piano Teacher 2001

Grouped with 'The Graduate' and 'The Long Good Friday' as endings that hold on a face, the model for Clayton's last shot.

The Long Good Friday 1980

Its final close-up among the endings Gilroy studied for Clayton's.

‘Chop Shop’Ramin Bharani in Willets Point

Chop Shop 2008

Bharani's second feature, shot in the auto-shop junkyards of Willets Point, Queens, where migrants slept in the abandoned cars. Alejandro Polanco and Isamar Gonzalez, two non-actors from the Lower East Side, play 12-year-old Ale and his teenage sister Izzy, hustling to save $4,500 for a food van, under a billboard that reads 'Make Dreams Happen.' Polanco spent six months learning to work in a real garage; the kids got no script and improvised. It opened on a handful of screens in early 2008, as the recession made the film's desperation feel timed to the moment.

Man Push Cart 2006

Bharani's first feature, about a Pakistani immigrant pushing a coffee cart around the city. Made for under $80,000 with non-actors; Roger Ebert put it on his 2006 top 10. During the shoot, strangers twice accused Bharani and his lead of being terrorists.

The class of 2007the big-idea studio films that were about to get harder to make

There Will Be Blood 2007

Paul Thomas Anderson's oil drama, Daniel Day-Lewis as Daniel Plainview. Part of the 2007 run of big-star, big-idea studio films about a broken America; released by Paramount Vantage, which folded in 2008.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford poster

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford 2007

Andrew Dominik's western, Brad Pitt as the outlaw taking stock of a lifetime of violence. Another of the year's films about Americans feeling rootless or let down.

Zodiac 2007

David Fincher's procedural, covered earlier in the series and grouped here with 2007's mid-budget originals.

No Country for Old Men 2007

The Coen brothers' film, teased as the closer, one of the end-of-Bush movies asking how the country got here.

Also mentioned raised along the way

Tony Gilroy's résumé The Cutting Edge Dolores Claiborne Proof of Life The Bourne Identity

Clooney's downbeat 2000s Syriana Good Night, and Good Luck Solaris

The franchises studios leaned on Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone Spider-Man Meet the Fockers

In passing 25th Hour Red Scorpion

Not films filtered out: TV, games, ads

Ads NetflixBoar's HeadFanDuelGoogle AIWhite ClawNespresso