The Counselor Movie Review

After seeing the trailer for Ridley Scott’s The Counselor so many times this past summer, it is easy to instantly recall the movie’s tagline: ‘Have you been bad?’  I just wish someone would have told me they were really asking the film itself.

The Counselor revolves around Michael Fassbender, whose name is literally ‘Counselor’.  Apparently, our Counselor has gotten over his head financially, and decides the world of drug trafficking will salvage his good name.  Which he doesn’t even have.  Counselor’s amour, Laura (Penelope Cruz), is unaware of his indiscretions, but wishes to spend her life eternal with him regardless.

We also come across some of the best actors working today.  Brad Pitt as Westray, essentially a cartel liaison; Javier Bardem as Reiner, the cartel trafficker with the crazy hair (that’s how you know he’s unique), who gets Counselor into all of this; and of course Cameron Diaz as Malkina, the mysterious woman on Reiner’s arm who always seems to have a bit more going on behind the eyes, as well as a penchant for randomly having sex with a car.  Yes, you read that right.

When a random, and I do mean random, circumstance causes the cartel to think the Counselor and his affiliates have stolen $20 million in product from them, all parties begin to panic to find a solution to their ever-increasing problem: Find a way out of this, or resolve yourself to death.  Each of their world’s collide, as the cartel and others reign hell upon all those involved.

Ridley Scott is one of the most acclaimed directors of his time. Coupled with that, the film is written by Cormac McCarthy (No Country for Old Men, The Road). Tripled with that, The Counselor boasts one of the strongest casts of the entire YEAR.  So how, HOW, did we end up with THIS movie?

The writing and the dialogue is pedestrian at best.  The dialogue is so unrealistic and over-the-top, at times it will simply make you wince at how bad it is.  Some of the actors manage to elevate the material (Bardem, Pitt, Fassbender), most do not. Diaz, for example, is not necessarily miscast; it’s that her dialogue is often groan inducing.

It is this way with several monologues in the film.  Sex, death, drugs: It’s all here, delivered in long, meant to be thought-provoking yet ends up in sleep-inducing, long stretches of useless dialogue. Sure, there are a handful of memorable scenes that almost save the film, but a handful simply does not create a solid narrative.  Something The Counselor sorely needs.

Half of the scenarios in the film depend solely on the most random coincidences possible.  Even the main crux of the story hinges on some random association that you would have to believe the Cartel in question was run by a gaggle of morons to ever believe the conspiracy would unfold this way.  Seriously, a multi-million dollar drug cartel makes this leap of logic sober?  I don’t think so.

I could go on and on about what simply does not work in The Counselor, I won’t.  You get the point already.  This is an inflated vanity project, one made sadder from the enormous waste of pedigree saturated throughout the film. Thankfully, the actors each walk out unscathed, as they have given their all.  McCarthy and Scott, though?  Not so much.

So, Ridley Scott, when your film asked me, in its deepest sincerity: ‘Have you been bad?’  The answer is yes, Counselor, you sure have.

 

If $10 is the full price of admission, The Counselor is worth $3.50

 

Aaron Peterson
The Hollywood Outsider
www.TheHollywoodOutsider.com