Hacker Cinema
Michael Clayton
2007 · Film · 120 min
Directed by Tony Gilroy
A law firm brings in its "fixer" to remedy the situation after a lawyer has a breakdown while representing a chemical company that he knows is guilty in a multi-billion dollar class action suit.
9 positive6 neutralfrom 15 commenters
Where to watch
No streaming data for this title.
15 comments on Hacker News
There are some great movies that deal with this: Wall Street, The Firm, The Big Short, Suicide Kings, Michael Clayton, among others.
One can even consider the never ending Ethics classes in college an ironic form of corruption that never teaches anything we don't already know by secondary school, but used to pad credit numbers and tuition revenue.
An excellent movie on basically the same topic is Michael Clayton, with George Clooney, Tom Wilkinson, and Tilda Swinton in IMO each of their best career performances.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Clayton
Worth watching “Michael Clayton”
Anyone remember Michael Clayton? Great film.
Very good movie, just watched the other day. Michael Clayton is good too, though fictional.
The movie Michael Clayton springs to mind for some reason.
Not that wild. It's not like Boeing would convene a board meeting and take a vote, "should we hire a contract killer to eliminate this threat?"
When a company hires a killer to kill somebody, it is almost always[1] one person, or perhaps in rare cases a couple people, within the company who do it to protect themselves and what they have, or what hope to get, or sometimes, sure, for revenge or because they're nuts. Just like when natural people hire people to kill people.
That's why I liked the movie Michael Clayton. It was the only realistic[2] movie about that scenario.
Alternatively, sure — your scenario is also quite plausible. Who knows? Not us. But neither scenario, nor the other "Boeing or some subset thereof leaned on him so hard without actually doing murder, and maybe even without actually doing anything criminal, that he thought his life was effectively ruined and so killed himself" seems "wild" to me. All plausible.
[1]: source: it's obvious
[2]: regarding the actual mechanics of "how 'a company hires killers to kill somebody' works" — not necessarily the rest; it's still a Hollywood movie
The "highly-skilled" assassin is kind of a myth. Most killers-for-hire are idiots.
This is Michael Clayton stuff, but the assassination in the movie is much more "elegant".
Watched the movie Michael Clayton this morning which seems to be basically about Monsanto and Roundup. I know about the cases and it's always distressing to me because my dad was a farmer who grew round up ready canola and I grew up drinking water from a well on this farm. My dad is cancer free ATM, but it is unsettling to think about.
I love corporate/financial/technology/mathematics thriller film genres but they seems to be a very small niche. Good ones are especially rare. My favourite is "Michael Clayton" (2007), and "Margin Call" (2011) is my second favourite. "Sneakers" (1992) is old but pretty good. "Disclosure" (1994) is also old but quite watchable. Dare I mention "Pi" (1998)?
Someone here mentioned the TV series "Billions" which is my guilty pleasure. The stories are so absurd but the great cast manages to carry it off successfully. The only criticism I would make is that, although the show is ostensibly about a hedge fund manager, it seems to contain almost zero actual finance or game theory stuff. The only occasion, that I can recall, when finance enters the plot in a semi-serious way is the episode "Short Squeeze", which was one of my favourite episodes.
There is this line from Michael Clayton movie that I basically assume every time I see something like this ‘client:(phone rings) That’s the police isn’t it? MC: No, they don’t call.’ Or in this case, they don’t email.
Absolutely, a well made film with an amazing score. My annual christmas watch along with Michael Clayton. I hope someday they will make a sequel for this gem.
In the movies it also often backfires (Michael Clayton) with George Clooney, our fixer, having moral compass after all.
This situation mirrors that of Enemy of the State(1998) pretty well, except for the end. Irl important wealthy people are never punished.
From the Wikipedia plot summary for the movie "Michael Clayton":
"Karen Crowder (Tilda Swinton), U-North's general counsel, discovers that Arthur had come into possession of a confidential U-North document detailing the company's decision to manufacture a weed killer it knew to be carcinogenic."[1]
[1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Clayton_(film)#Plot
I just want to point out that Theranos is involved in lawsuits with nearly everyone now. Former employees, investors, its pivotal business partner Walgreens, the federal government, state governments and they've threatened legal actions against journalist and news outlets. Their product turned out to be sham. They covered up the evidence. They threatened everyone. They resorted to intimidation tactics. All while people's health were on the line.
Theranos is without a doubt among the worst companies to ever come out of the Bay Area. They're like a real life UNorth (Michael Clayton film). I hope their collapse is complete, utter and thorough. Everything and everyone in their leadership team painted with that brush for the rest of their career.
The WSJ and their journalist John Carreyrou ought to be commended and probably win a pulitzer for their coverage of Theranos.