Directed by:
Ridley ScottScreenplay:
Cormac McCarthyCinematography:
Dariusz WolskiComposer:
Daniel PembertonCast:
Michael Fassbender, Penélope Cruz, Cameron Diaz, Javier Bardem, Brad Pitt, Bruno Ganz, Rosie Perez, Edgar Ramirez, Natalie Dormer, Dean Norris, Goran Visnjic (more)VOD (3)
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The Counselor stars Michael Fassbender as the title character, a slick lawyer who is madly in love with Laura (Penelope Cruz). He asks her to marry him, and she agrees, though she is unaware that serious financial troubles have prompted him to fund a drug deal with a shady but established middle man (Brad Pitt), that could bring in millions. Part of the counselor's financial troubles stem from the fact that he's investing in a club being opened by his best friend Reiner (Javier Bardem), a hedonist and occasional client who has attained his wealth by any means necessary, and likes to keep his wife (Cameron Diaz) covered in all the accoutrements the wealthy enjoy. However, when the drug deal starts to go wrong, the counselor finds himself unprepared to deal with the fallout, and soon he's trying to protect his bride-to-be as well as himself from the wrath of a drug cartel that has no qualms about exacting revenge. (official distributor synopsis)
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Reviews (12)
The basic problem with The Counselor is that Cormac McCarthy didn't write the movie script. And yet his writing is strongly recognizable underneath it all. Here, too, the characters are not really characters, but vehicles for the monologues that The Counselor follows and is confronted with. From that perspective, if the film can be compared to anything, it's Linklater's Waking Life. However, unlike Waking Life, here the key to deconstruction is still the main storyline, which even at the end has too many unknowns and is most likely counting on the viewer adding up the variables because of the way the characters have been sketched. Sure, The Counselor is unlikable – it is, after all, too ruthless and bleak and, more importantly, it translates that elusiveness of the Mexican business code in all its glory and, despite a certain tendency in Brad Pitt's character, realizes that there is no way to bring that code to a Western audience. If The Consultant were a book and someone capable of adapting it decided to do so, it would be just another No Country for Old Men.
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A very tough and uncompromising film full of references, philosophy, life wisdom and truths, going against any audience trends, expecting a high level of intellect and the ability to read between the lines. Ambiguous, unclassifiable, yet sometimes hypnotic and captivating. For someone without insights in life, a film about nothing. For the rest, a strong experience. Saw the extended version.
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An elegantly cruel film in which the expensively dressed world of a treacherous lawyer obsessed with innocent women collides with Mexican cartel hell. Ridley Scott conveys this conflict not through action, but through dialogue. He doesn’t milk the audience’s emotions but uses an intellectual, even philosophical approach. The characters’ motivations are only suggested, and waiting for their (ambiguous) reactions and the escalation of tense situations are what drive the film forward. The philosophical musings are nothing special, but I enjoyed the acting performances and well-done visuals. If the plot had been more clearly constructed, I’d give it four stars. Cameron Diaz spreading her legs over the windshield of a Ferrari is unforgettable. The Counselor is a guilty pleasure in the form of an exercise in vanity.
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Or: how the best living oversees writer and the best living British director didn’t really see eye to eye in matters of art. Each of them does their own thing regardless of the other. And so Cormac rolls out all the screenwriters’ tricks ignoring the purely symbolic metaphorical and existential level which is full of ambiguous characters, holding up mirrors, hidden motivations and declamations seemingly about nothing, but in reality about redemption, damnation, the (im)possibility to choose and predestination and its thriller storyline represents just a necessary (but smarter and more true to life than it might have seem), all connecting excuse. The other one concentrates on what makes sense from the genre film making point of view and so he doesn’t care about the characters, the message, let alone the symbolism of the movie. The result is so unique, peculiar and well casted (apart from that one exception that breaks the rule... Yes, I’m talking to you Cameron) that in some circles it’s on its way to becoming a cult movie and for rest it’s doomed to remain misunderstood, damned and heading the Razzies.
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I think that people today won’t get this movie. It’s intended to be deep, but it’s terribly superficial. Which results in tense friction between both surfaces. The Counselor demonstrates just how Hollywood Scott’s style is. McCarthy wrote an incredible screenplay that breaks all the rules, unfortunately he didn’t make sure that the director applied the necessary parable to the movie. For something like that, I think someone else would be more suitable, Nicolas Winding Refn seems to me to the best choice. Personally, I like Scott’s style, so I was able to get over this point. The cast that he put together is admirable, but it maybe goes against the type proportions of the actors themselves. Fassbender is unusually nice, the evil that they talk about consists of just greed and snobbery. Pitt is fine, although a bit forced in places. Reiner is completely wrong for Bardem, he doesn’t play the role badly, but he’s simply the wrong type. Penny Cruz should be younger and more crazily in love, but she doesn’t make much of an appearance. And then there’s Cameron Diaz as Malkina. A monstrous, calculating bitch and probably the second most important character. McCarthy has probably never written a stronger female part. And Diaz took it on with flying colors. She’s good at swines, but Angelina would have suited better. And now we come to the biggest problem, which is the age rating. The Counselor hovers cleverly along the edge of the 15 rating, but this makes all the murder and sexual tension too sterile. The scene with the Ferrari is special and well delivered, but it doesn’t have the necessary shock effect that the characters talk about. Any torture in this movie is just talked about. It could be due to the artistic intention, but this takes away the credibility, the chilling edge of the picture. What’s the point of polished dialogs about death and doom if we see almost none of it? The Counselor isn’t a bad movie, it’s just too strange to like.
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