Michael Fassbender stars in this Ridley Scott (Prometheus) thriller about a respected lawyer who's one-time dalliance with an illegal business deal spirals out of control. From the mind of Pulitzer Prize winning writer Cormac McCarthy (No Country for Old Men). Co-stars Penélope Cruz, Javier Bardem, Cameron Diaz and Brad Pitt.
34%220 reviews
Steeped in the heat of the desert and laden with existential musings, The Counselor is a gripping movie-length lesson on why crime doesn't pay, particularly in Mexico. Following Fassbender's titular character as he dips a toe into the drug trade and proceeds to get dragged way out of his depth, it's uncompromisingly bleak but always captivating.
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The script is nearly all dialogue, including several eloquent spoken passages toward the end, but it’s a lousy story, ineptly constructed and rendered far too difficult to follow.
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An absorbing thriller that favours vivid characters, profound ideas and Old Testament morals over propulsive plotting and set-pieces. With lots of blood.
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For every camp element like Javier Bardem’s rainbow-vomit outfits or Diaz’s onanistic tryst with a car windshield, there are a dozen poetic-pulp moments that channel McCarthy’s pitiless view of the world to a tee.
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Terrifying, implacable... Mr. Scott’s seriousness isn’t always well served by the scripts he films, but in Mr. McCarthy he has found a partner with convictions about good and evil rather than canned formula.
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Working as a screenwriter for the first time after years of seeing his novels successfully adapted to the screen, McCarthy is stretching his powers of language and mood – and, all too quickly, stretching his slim story and cast of characters way too far.
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McCarthy’s voice comes through strongly enough to excuse the film’s excesses and cast its more generic plot elements in a new light.
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Despite its scaldingly hot cast and formidable writer/director combination, The Counselor is simply not a very likable or gratifying film. In fact, it's a bummer.
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Ridley Scott finally gets to put Cormac McCarthy on the screen. It’s no No Country, but despite its less successful elements is shocking, powerful and — this just in — more gorgeously written than any movie you’ll see this year.
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