The Counselor is a strange, strange film. I saw it tonight, yet it is as if I did not see it. It is a hard film to place and measure. It is often hypnotic, even riveting, yet also mediocre and unsatisfying. The Confounding may be a more apt title. In advance of the film's release, many, myself included, noted the way its advertising strongly emphasized an A-list cast and a general sense of unease without conveying a specific conflict or storyline. This is not a case of inept advertising, but an unavoidable reflection of the product on sale. This is, at its core, a brutal and simple cautionary tale: on the eve of proposing to his beautiful and naive girlfriend (Penélope Cruz), a hotshot Texas lawyer (Michael Fassbender) becomes involved in a deal with a Mexican drug cartel, a situation facilitated by two criminal acquaintances (Javier Bardem and Brad Pitt) even as they also warn of how his life could be torn apart should the deal go awry. The film then becomes a type of waiting game: the axe falls in increments as characters wax philosophical, often at great length, on good and evil, love and sex, greed, and doom.

This is the first produced film script by iconic American novelist Cormac McCarthy, and I am sad to say I believe most the film's flaws flow from his fingertips. He turns to previous conceits, but finds diminished returns. For example, not naming the father and son in The Road infused their story of hope and survival at the end of the world with a mythic component, but not giving the protagonist here a name is just trite. The other characters call him "Counselor" again and again and again, and I began to wish he were just, say, Paul or Will. Self-conscious ellipses in the plot create a high level of confusion and left, in my estimation, basic and significant questions unanswered: why, for instance, does this dangerous and powerful cartel require the assistance of a single lawyer of no import for this single shipment (one, as far as I can tell, of many), beyond the fact it sets the string of betrayals and murders in motion? McCarthy also lets his characters become novelists far too often, unleashing monologues and philosophical treatises in the general direction of one another instead of sharing a natural conversation. Is a great deal of the dialogue beautiful on a technical level? Yes, but there is still too much of it, and it too often reads (plays) as poetry conveying the same repetitive point to a tedious degree.

Ridley Scott, as iconic a figure in film direction as McCarthy is in literature, is hamstrung this time out, a confident stylist desperate to craft an exciting and stylish desert set suspense film, but imprisoned at almost every turn by verbiage and a noticeably limited scope. This is far from his most characteristic or distinguished picture. As for the head turning cast, Cameron Diaz is strongly miscast as a femme fatale, dialing every bad-bad-bitch tic to eleven without ever truly becoming a convincing menace, and Penélope Cruz is strongly underutilized as a thinly conceived love interest present only to weep and bleed for the sins of men, but the rest of the myriad ensemble players range from functional and solid (lead Fassbender) to delightful (Pitt, electrifying every time he is on screen and leaving the audience wishing his enigmatic character was the film's primary focus).

C

Many people are going to compare this to Killing Them Softly: crime film, Brad Pitt, dialogue driven with a message to convey (perhaps to the point of becoming didactic), etc. I already resent the comparison, though. Killing Them Softly holds my attention with vice-grip intensity and is, in equal measure, disturbing and hilarious. A real movie. An experience. This is mostly ponderous and unpleasant baloney. Sorry, McCarthy. I still love your novels.

Yeah, unfortunately this is pretty terrible. I'm not even entirely sure what it was about. It has a few positive aspects - it's well-shot and there are a few tense, well-staged sequences. I really enjoyed the performances from Javier Bardem and Brad Pitt, but I thought Fassbender was kind of mediocre to be honest. Penelope Cruz barely even has a role that registers, Rosie Perez is great and gets more to do dramatically than her in like two scenes. Cameron Diaz is definitely miscast here and it's unfortunate as she has the film's meatiest role. I agree with David that she never feels as menacing as she should and also her accent going in and out didn't help matters. The dialogue is to blame for almost all of the film's faults - it is borderline unbearable at times. I HATED how everyone just called him Counselor and it was used like a hundred times in each dialogue exchange. By the end it was seriously almost comical. C

I though it was fine. It gives you plenty to think about after the film ends, as well as during it. Diaz is miscast, I will agree with that but the rest of the actors are good here (even Cruz in her short time). It's definitely a very different structure than most films you watch but once I grasped that this was the way the film would roll, I had fun with it.

What did it leave you thinking about?

What in the fresh hell? The Counselor is a turgid bore marked by endless passages of inane philosophical babbling. The film also makes little to no sense; when it ended, I'm not even sure I understood what I just saw or what the film's plot even was. I lay most of the blame for this at the hands of Cormac McCarthy, whose terrible, pretentious dialogue is the film's ultimate undoing. It looks pretty impressive from a technical standpoint; Ridley Scott does a nice job with the film's locations and atmosphere (the film might be better on mute). The remarkable cast is not well served, in particular. Michael Fassbender essays one of the least interesting protagonists of the year, while poor Penelope Cruz barely even gets to window dress. Javier Bardem and Brad Pitt at least bring some spark to the proceedings. This brings me to Cameron Diaz, whose Malkina is by far the film's most interesting character and most obnoxiously scripted one at the same time. Diaz is miscast, but at least she seems to be having some fun in this vampish cartoonish role. When all was said and done, the film just annoyed me. The biggest disappointment of 2013 without a doubt. D+

"Say, ever seen a snuff film?"

Best segue of the year.

There are moments here which I believe could have proven incredibly powerful if we cared more, if we were on the edge of our seats, such as the hopeless fate of Cruz's character. The way there is hardly even a question of paying a ransom or otherwise saving her because it is as if evil has simply devoured her. The final shot of her could be a gut punch among gut punches, but the audience is not invested.

That was...interesting. It wasn't bad, especially for a film that barely has a plot, but certainly not what I hoped for with the cast and director attached.

THE COUNSELOR

I was so looking forward to this film after that trailer, but it just didn't draw me in. It kind of felt like Traffic in a way because each of the main stars could have easily had their own intersecting vignettes but as one story beginning to end here I was a bit bored mostly. It's like you were just thrown into the decision by the Counselor to enter this deal and that's it. Things go bad. Some results happen that are sad and interesting but it's all mostly forgettable. What I did really like was the costume design of the film. I thought each character had quite their own unique and flamboyant style in some cases. I liked seeing Rosie Perez in something again. I felt sorry for Penelope's character because she had ZERO to do with anything and just gets that horrible pointless death but a very real one too. It's such a shame to even know there are those types of total ghetto trash on earth doing this. Anyway, one other thing you could take away is to Never trust your extremely hot girl or at least never tell her Everything. Cameron was probably the best thing in the film for me.

Grade - C

Holy crap nooooooo. The movie already felt 6 hours long at its current length. I would've slapped it with the rare F grade if it actually went on another 45 minutes.

LOL. Diaz is one of the only things I enjoyed in this.

I'm not praising her performance or anything. I like her a lot usually but she was totally miscast. But at least her hot mess of a performance was interesting, everyone else in the movie was boring.

I never found the film boring. Frustrating, rather. The scenes with Brad Pitt are electric, though. The scenes with Javier Bardem are mostly solid, too. The nature of this film allows me to see it in a very fragmented way. I can safely say the Brad Pitt centric vein is awesome, and the Cameron Diaz centric vein is awful, even though they are ultimately part of the same tapestry.

In the scene set in "Chicago," showing the shit mobile approaching a warehouse, there is a mountain in the distance, lol.

Out of sheer (morbid) curiosity, I downloaded a free sample of the screenplay. All it had was the opening scene. I realize that Cormac McCarthy is one of the best living American writers, but it seriously sounded like something written by a middle schooler who has no idea how sex or human interactions work.

garrulous and obtuse

I actually liked this very much. And Magnus is right, it should have been longer.

I feel like there is a great film buried somewhere beneath the pretentious monologues.

The more I think about it, the more I like it.

It's really good. Probably makes my top 10 of 2013 as of now.

Cormac's chance, consequences, determinism and predators, etc. themes probably would've felt more revelatory if NCFOM didn't exist and admittedly the script can be on the nose or overwinded, but I still dug it again.

I thought the dialog was luscious to listen to and it has moments of individual greatness scenes wise when things get violent. Scott directs in a calm, controlled way

I agree Diaz' performance had a hollowness to it but I think it was intended for her to be not so much human, but a machine-like presence of self-sufficiency and annihilation. In a way a more pure version of what Anton represented. Everyone in the film is involved for a motive such as love (Fassbender), hedonism (Bardem), women/money (Pitt), but the Diaz character is disconnected from all of that (except for having "The Tony Soprano", an attachment to animals in place of humans) and thus is able to come out on top.

It's not perfect, perhaps Scott could've gone to one higher gear artistically, but overall if it's a poor man's masterpiece that's still enough to be one of the more interesting films of the year and his best film in forever

Umm, Diaz' motive was quite clearly money.

Isn't money also Fassbender's character's primary motivation and downfall, not love?

The Counselor

Once you get passed all the bullshit monologues of bullshit philosophy, it's a stylish and interesting film. Fassbender gives a brilliant performance, and Pitt is great as always (his death is a highlight). Diaz, I can't take seriously. Cruz is a MILF, and always will be. Bardem tried to be less-Bardem, but he's not got the range. Overall, it's one of Ridley 'overrated' Scott's best. There are lessons to be learnt here and morales to be told, and some of them are in play until the end. It's no more complicated than that.

B

yeah, this is a strange movie. I kinda liked the first half or so but as it went on it turned into bleh.