The Counsellor Film Review

This rough patch of Ridley Scott’s esteemed filmography needs to stop soon and nowhere is closer to the truth than this film. Written by author Cormac McCarthy of No Country for Old Men fame, the story and I use the term loosely, goes as follows. Michael Fassbender, simply known as the Counsellor. Is a lawyer for high profile members of the Cartel and he soon gets involved with cementing a drug deal that would be worth a great deal to those involved.

He is set up by his friend and client, Reiner played by Javier Bardem and financially ambitious girlfriend Malkina played by Cameron Diaz. Setting up the deal with business associate Westray played by Brad Pitt. After being warned of the potential danger involved, The Counselor is unconcerned and proceeds anyway. But, very soon, dangerous people are involved. Deceit and murder start to become afoot, and what starts out as a potential business deal goes horribly awry. The Counsellor will then have to defend himself as well as his fiance played by Penelope Cruz from sudden doom.

When you have a cast like that, with Ridley Scott behind the wheel and with Cormac McCarthy penning the dialogue, it sounds like a winning combination – alas no. This is one of the dullest, pretentious, and creatively inert films that I’ve ever seen. Cormac McCarthy’s dialogue is one of the worst elements of this film. He is a talented author, but here it’s like the Emperor has received new clothes and also a script that was this film, as one big gift package. Every conversation in this film is written in the most pseudo-intellectual drivel that it’s hard to take seriously. However, since the film relies on this spoken, exposition driven narrative, it becomes overly dull.

It doesn’t help that Ridley Scott directs the cast to speak the dialogue in mostly hushed and serious tones. That really makes it seem complicated and forced. The film takes plenty of twists and turns and character arcs that overlap each other. Which heavily remind you that films like Steven Soderbergh’s Traffic or Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s Amores Perros have done this narrative much better and with far more depth behind it all. Michael Fassbender is one of our most talented actors working today. He really does try to give the dialogue some credibility, but even he can’t save this film from falling apart.

Not to mention that despite some sequences that are violent and out there. One scene, in particular, involves Cameron Diaz and a car. Which really defied belief and really should have been taken out the film altogether. It didn’t further the story or really add anything; it was just gratuitous. On paper or as a simple pitch, there is something there that I’m sure would have seemed like a film to knock it right out of the park but as it is, it doesn’t even reach first base. I think that this film, with all its intellectual dialogue and crisscrossing it, thinks it's deliberately meant to be vague and mysterious. Though it honestly just comes across as incomprehensible nonsense.

The cast themselves are talented in general. However, they deserve better material than what they were given. Ridley Scott really does need to find a better platform to showcase his necessary storytelling abilities – one can only hope.

1/5