The Counselor

Brad Pitt plays a bastard, Michael Fassbender plays a bastard, Javier Bardem is both a pervert and a bastard. Penelope Cruz is good, especially in the beginning, but on the other hand she is not there that much. Cameron Diaz plays such a bitch that it made me sick. Nevertheless, all the acting performances are great, I just don’t really know who to focus on in order for the movie to appear at least a little bit likeable. This way it is Ridley Scott’s most unpleasant movie for me, and it doesn’t matter that it has an interesting story when I’m not able to enjoy it with these actors. (06/21/2014)

As much as I like the work of Ridley Scott (a lot) and Cormac McCarthy (a lot), I have to say that The Counselor impressed me primarily as an extremely pretentious film that (in roughly the following order) entertains, bores, bores, entertains, bores, bores, bores, bores. This makes me sad. It cannot be said that McCarthy wrote anything particularly badly, that Scott filmed anything badly, or that any of the actors acted badly. But I would have been much happier if McCarthy had written a book instead of a screenplay, in which I could read his dialogues in peace, return to them and think about them. Because when they come at me in such a powerful and pounding stream as is the case with this film, they don't make me feel good at all. And that's a shame. Now I have no choice but to buy the book version of the script (which I would have bought anyway), read it, and then give the film another chance. Probably. (11/29/2013)

I will not stoop to commenting on the senility of Ridley Scott, because there are plenty of users aping similar big-mouthed statements from foreign reviews about last year's Prometheus. That said, it is still true that I am quite disappointed. Not that Ridley forgot how to direct – but that he is simply unrecognizable in The Counselor. It is all just Cormac McCarthy's self-absorbed screenplay, materialized into lazily rolling dialogues, framed by a pretty good side plot and very inconsistently cast. While Michael Fassbender and Brad Pitt carry everything, Cameron Diaz turns out to be a casting misstep unlike any I can remember. Every gesture or word feels forced and wooden, making all the smaller positives (the soundtrack, the action flashes) almost forgotten. Given the creative team, I can't believe I'm stooping so low, but when even I, who easily let myself be captivated by the story, can see through the random fragments to the very end, something is wrong. (11/27/2013)

The basic problem with The Counselor is that Cormac McCarthy didn't write the movie script. And yet his writing is strongly recognizable underneath it all. Here, too, the characters are not really characters, but vehicles for the monologues that The Counselor follows and is confronted with. From that perspective, if the film can be compared to anything, it's Linklater's Waking Life. However, unlike Waking Life, here the key to deconstruction is still the main storyline, which even at the end has too many unknowns and is most likely counting on the viewer adding up the variables because of the way the characters have been sketched. Sure, The Counselor is unlikable – it is, after all, too ruthless and bleak and, more importantly, it translates that elusiveness of the Mexican business code in all its glory and, despite a certain tendency in Brad Pitt's character, realizes that there is no way to bring that code to a Western audience. If The Consultant were a book and someone capable of adapting it decided to do so, it would be just another No Country for Old Men. (03/05/2014)

An elegantly cruel film in which the expensively dressed world of a treacherous lawyer obsessed with innocent women collides with Mexican cartel hell. Ridley Scott conveys this conflict not through action, but through dialogue. He doesn’t milk the audience’s emotions but uses an intellectual, even philosophical approach. The characters’ motivations are only suggested, and waiting for their (ambiguous) reactions and the escalation of tense situations are what drive the film forward. The philosophical musings are nothing special, but I enjoyed the acting performances and well-done visuals. If the plot had been more clearly constructed, I’d give it four stars. Cameron Diaz spreading her legs over the windshield of a Ferrari is unforgettable. The Counselor is a guilty pleasure in the form of an exercise in vanity. (12/23/2013)