Discuss his acting chops here. To me, he’s kind of a modern Burt Reynolds…charming as hell, so in the right role he’s a fun watch. My memory is that he was good in Three Kings
Clooney is charismatic and likeable, but not a great actor; maybe a few decent roles, but he seems to be trapped in the space between vacuous action hero/sex symbol and deep enough to earn some worthy roles. I think he was good in Brother where are thou and The American, and very on spot for the Ocean movies, but never good enough to be Oscar worthy, which given some of the trophies they have awarded, isn't necessarily demeaning.
He's a better actor than I am so I don't feel justified in criticizing him for his acting. That said, I've arguably only seen him in 4 titles - Gravity, Friends, Facts of Life and Riptide (the latter is the only one of the TV shows I can actually remember him in). He just doesn't act in shows that interest me.
He's good in Three Kings and The American. I also kind of liked his directorial work on Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. Michael Clayton is a great movie but I'm not sure you can argue it's because of Clooney. Denzel Washington was almost cast in that role and it's hard not to wonder what he might have done with some of that material. Like the "I'm not the guy..." climactic scene, that is kind of tailor made for Denzel.
I said in the other thread that to me, Clooney's best work is when he has somebody (or somebodies) to play off. In Michael Clayton he had Tom Wilkinson, Sydney Pollack, and Tilda Swinton. Even Merritt Wever in her limited role outshown Clooney. Yeah, that speech, specifically, would have been better if it had somebody who could do a bad guy. Denzel would have been great. Christian Bale would have done better. There are probably several actors could have done better on their own.