The Counselor

 

MPAA/Content  R [AC, AL, N, SV]

Distributor  20th Century Fox

Technical  HD  2.35:1

Genres  CRI DRA THR

Runtime  117 mins.

Country  USA UK

Budget  $25M

 

CAST

Michael Fassbender, Penélope Cruz, Cameron Diaz, Javier Bardem, Brad Pitt, Bruno Ganz, Rosie Perez, Sam Spruell, Toby Kebbell, Édgar Ramierez, Rubén Blades, Natalie Dormer, Goran Visnjic, John Leguizamo, Emma Rigby & Dean Norris

 

CREDITS

Director: Ridley Scott; Screenwriter: Cormac McCarthy; Producers: Ridley Scott, Nick Wechsler, Steve Schwartz & Paula Mae Schwartz; Director Of Photography: Dariusz Wolski; Production Designer: Arthur Max; Editor: Pietro Scalia; Costume Designer: Janty Yates; Music Composer: Daniel Pemberton

 

THE SYNOPSIS 

Counselor (Fassbender) enjoys a Texas morning romp in the sack with his lovely girlfriend Laura (Cruz). Later, he attends a party at the house of the wealthy-but-shady drug kingpin Reiner (Bardem) and his girlfriend Malkina (Diaz) to discuss getting into the dangerous but lucrative drug business with the Mexican Cartel. Reiner advises against it—but the Counselor is ambitious.

Reiner sets up a meeting with another shady dude, Westray (Pitt)—who also advises the Counselor to stay clear of this business. No dice. To get the ball rolling, Counselor visits one of his clients, Ruth (Perez), currently serving time in jail. She asks that he bails out her biker son “The Geen Hornet” after he is arrested for speeding.

Turns out that Hornet is a valued cartel member heading towards the pick-up spot where a sewage truck loaded with drugs is waiting. He never makes it to the spot as a criminal named “The Wireman” (Spruell)—hired by the scheming Malkina—kills him on the highway. Sadly, Westray later informs the Counselor that the Cartel has implicated him as the one responsible for having Hornet killed and the drugs stolen.

What follows is a series of crosses-and-double-crosses when Reiner is killed by Cartel members as they try to capture him. The Counselor tries to flee with Laura after Westray disappears—but she is captured by the Cartel. Death and tragedy follow the Counselor as Malkina pulls the strings on he, Westray and The Cartel.

THE CRITIQUE

THE COUNSELOR is a real disappointment. There…I said it straight-up. It is hard for me to say, as the movie was directed by one of my all-time favorite directors: Sir Ridley Scott. Swear to God—the man is my idol. As a film scholar and filmmaker, I am a Scott acolyte true and true. So why has he made his worst movie since the underwhelming Matchstick Men (2003)? And don’t even get me started on the disappointment that Prometheus (2012) was…

But I digress. The movie was written directly for the screen by lauded Pulitzer Prize-winning author and playwright Cormac McCarthy (whose books All The Pretty Horses, The Road and No Country For Old Men became film adaptations themselves—with the latter winning the Best Picture Oscar^® of 2007). What should have been a terse, sinewy thriller turns out to be a dull, talky exercise in cold indifference. Zzzzzzzz… Cormac, I respect you as an author—but please, leave the screenwriting to those more qualified! See how well No Country For Old Men turned out? Oh—and by the way: read his Pulitzer Prize-winning The Road; it is a masterpiece slice of post-apocalyptic Americana.

Back to Sir Ridley, who directs THE COUNSELOR with little of the style and cinematic effervescence that he has practically patented in his many years of helming classics such as Alien (1979), Blade Runner (1982), Gladiator (2000), Black Hawk Down (2001) and countless others that are milestones in Cinema. Here, his auteur presence is so non-descript that it is really mind-boggling.

Sir Ridley’s director brother Tony Scott (the helmer of such classics as Top Gun, True Romance, Crimson Tide & Man On Fire) died during this movie’s production—which has since been dedicated to his memory. We lost a great filmmaker when Tony died—and Ridley surely felt the same (more so, he lost a brother)…so the idea & theme of Death must’ve hung in the air while making a movie about death. Still, this flick suffers from a dead script.

For such a bad movie, there sure is a cast of familiar faces abounding. I’m a big fan of Fassbender (underwhelming in a role that Christian Bale could have probably done better), Bardem (overwhelming in his über-producer Brian Grazer-style hairdo), Pitt (taciturn and sleazy), Cruz (radiant as always) & Diaz (see below)—but I get the funny feeling that some or all of these actors have been miscast. As I understand it, Diaz took the role after Angelina Jolie turned it down—which is weird, as I could see Jolie totally sodomizing a Ferrari more that I can Diaz.

Oops, did I give away a totally surreal part of the movie? Yes, you read right: Cameron Diaz f**ks a car to orgasm (hers, I mean) while the Bardem character watches in erotic horror. I would have watched the sequence again (several times) to make certain of what I was seeing—but there is no rewind button at the movie theater. Well, there’s always YouTube.

Production values on this relatively low-budget $25 million (boxofficemojo.com) movie are solid across the board.  THE COUNSELOR was shot in the USA, United Kingdom & Spain—the latter two standing in, respectively, for Southwestern USA and Mexico. Kudos to long-time Scott production designer Arthur Max (Gladiator, Black Hawk Down, Kingdom Of Heaven, Prometheus) for pulling it off.

THE COUNSELOR was lensed by veteran Polish cinematographer Dariusz Wolski (The Crow, Crimson Tide, Pirates Of The Caribbean series, Prometheus)—one of my favorite cameramen. I’ll say this: the HD-widescreen photography (captured utilizing the terrific RED Epic camera system) is one of the few pluses here. Wolski’s lensing captures the warmth of the desert as well as the cold, sterile ambience of the Counselor’s home and the ultra-modern gleam of modern London. Nicely done, indeed.

The imagery is abetted by a solid cutting schema courtesy of Scott’s long-time editor Pietro Scalia (Oscar^®-winner for JFK & Black Hawk Down; also edited Gladiator, Black Hawk Down & Prometheus) and colorful costume design by another long-time Scott artisan Janty Yates (Oscar^®-winner for Gladiator; also clothed Kingdom Of Heaven, American Gangster & Prometheus). As you can see, the technical categories are the only redeeming factors here—hence the 2-star rating instead of my original 1.5-star evaluation.

 

THE BOTTOM LINE

In a rare case of the doldrums, Ridley Scott’s THE COUNSELOR underperforms as a movie—and that is a crime! Even with the cache of the Ridley Scott directing, a large cast of famous faces peppered across the screen, strong production values and exotic locations to boot…this one is DOA as a thriller and as a character study. As a viewer, I’d sue—but then my own counselor would simply declare that I saw this movie of my own volition.

Verdict: GUILTY…for sucking!! The sentence has already been handed out: FAILURE AT THE BOX OFFICE. Case closed.

 

 

 

IMDB:                    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2193215/

Wikipedia:             http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Counselor

Official Site:          http://www.thecounselormovie.com