The Counselor

[The Ugly]

As the guy who wanted to like the movie more than anyone... I have to say, it did suck.  2/5 movie at best.

Where to begin...  Fassbender and Bardem were the only ones who didn't seem completely lost with the script.  Pitt looked bored out of his mind.  Cruz was barely in the movie.  Hilariously enough, the most unreadable lines were doled out to Diaz in brutal, lengthy speeches... cringeworthy, to say the least.  Probably the worst of all though was this extended, utterly absurd rant delivered by some mexican guy toward the end of the movie.  This dude honestly sounded like a damn migrant worker (no racist) and was tasked with a downright embarrassing five minute near-monologue about the nature of fate or some shit.

I think McCarthy is the biggest reason this movie failed, by far, and also the biggest surprise.  The Road and No Country for Old Men worked very, very well as book adaptations.  It's astounding, then, how much The Counselor, which is McCarthy's first actual screenplay, feels like an adaptation of a book that's just way too wordy and "philosophical" to be translated onto the big screen.  I've heard The Road and No Country are two of his most sparsely written books, so I guess it makes sense that they would work well as screenplays, but why the hell he would go all Blood Meridian on our asses when he finally decides to write a screenplay is beyond me!

Enough about the script, though -- there are some good things to mention, as well.  McCarthy's penchant for detailed, creative vignettes comes through as the most positive part of the movie.  For being such shit overall, there are a lot of memorable scenes: Diaz' windshield-masturbation, a roadside trap, the "bolo", a roadside shootout, diamond shopping, etc.  There are also a lot of hilarious lines, both intentionally and unintentionally... hardest I've laughed in a LONG time at the movies is when Fassbender is having "phone sex" with Cruz, the scene ends, and it immediately cuts to a shot of some greasy old half-hobo staring down at his phone, as if Fassbender had been talking to him the whole time!

I don't know, maybe Ridley is to blame.  Maybe he could have reigned McCarthy in, squeezed more out of the cast, etc.  But I just can't help but think of this as a huge embarrassment for the 80 (!!!) year old author; maybe he's halfway to senility

One last thing, as I feared, there are a lot of similarities to No Country for Old Men, despite this film not even being 1/10th as good:

- Group of characters get in "over their heads" with a drug cartel that's practically portrayed as an omnipresent higher power.
- Untouchable, supremely powerful villain -- though in this case it's far less interesting because, unlike Chigurh, Diaz' character doesn't even fucking do anything.
- New Mexico-ish setting.
- Themes of fate, irrevocable actions.
- Fixation with some kind of gadget/weapon
- Even the gunfights had a lot in common

That said, No Country didn't really show the "poetic" side of McCarthy, and was beautifully shot, subtly tying one scene seamlessly into the next.  The Counselor, on the other hand, goes off the damn rails every other scene with some bullshit prose-poem monologue while the plot is relegated to a bunch of vaguely comprehensible side-scenes.

But let's end on a positive note: Natalie Dorner has a great ass!

Thanks for the review, man. Damn, I was hoping for better. Bums me out what you said about the script, but I've heard other reviews say the exact the same thing. As much as I would love to see Blood Meridian on the big screen, maybe it would face the same problems as this, with the wordy, philosophical monologues and all.

Too bad.

[The Ugly]

Just saw it. Wow, slow as fuck. You were right, ceph, I think the script probably killed it; all dialogue, no action. Seemed pretentious as hell, especially the Cameron Diaz scenes. Shit, nothing at all happened for over an hour, just talk. Oh, well. Almost saw Bad Grandpa instead, based on the unfavorable reviews of Counselor. I probably should have.

[cephissus]

Haha, you can almost imagine Cameron Diaz scorning Cormic's advances in some dimly lit trailer.  McCarthy thinks to himself, "Let's see how uppity she is when I give her THIS SHIT!" as he furiously scrawls dozens of pages of pure bile in a hungover haze.

[The Ugly]

Haha, you can almost imagine Cameron Diaz scorning Cormic's advances in some dimly lit trailer.  McCarthy thinks to himself, "Let's see how uppity she is when I give her THIS SHIT!" as he furiously scrawls dozens of pages of pure bile in a hungover haze.

I am happy he had her fuck a car, though. The body double (I'm sure) had amazing legs.

[arce1988]

  Had potential

[arce1988]

  Any one see it? I saw it. I have a lot of questions.

[RRKore]

I'm just worried because it looks a little too similar to No Country for Old Men.

I'll have to check out the trailer, loved NCFOM.  (Movie and book were both excellent.)

BTW, anyone play GTA 5 on this thread?  I was playing as Trevor in the extreme North area of the map and came upon two wounded guys (represented by red dots on the radar so they were enemies) laying on the ground with a silver briefcase containing $25G laying between them.  I killed both guys before snatching up the cash and drove east a little bit where I found a scene that seemed to have been taken directly from NCFOM; There were about 7 dead mexican guys in and around 3 or 4 bullet-riddled trucks.  Obviously I'd missed some big shoot-out.  I couldn't find any drugs but I did see a dead rottweiler.  I love this game.   (I tried to quick-save at this point but couldn't so I knew something was up  ---  and it was;  As soon as I made it back to the main highway, a couple of cars' worth of bad guys came after me but since I didn't have any vest at all I didn't fight them and just got the hell out of there by driving off-road north all the way to the waterline.

[Mr Anabolic]

 Any one see it? I saw it. I have a lot of questions.

Yes, and it was not worth it.  Diaz was horrible.  The plot/story was boring.  The movie had tremendous potential and acting talent, but it didn't deliver.  The only actor who was any good was Fassbender.  

I really have lost my respect for Ridley Scott.  First that Prometheus POS, now this.

[arce1988]

 Did the cartel get their drugs back? If they did, why the need to kill the cast (Pitt, Bardem, etc.)

?

[The Ugly]

Did the cartel get their drugs back? If they did, why the need to kill the cast (Pitt, Bardem, etc.)

?

POSSIBLE SPOILER




































I thought Cameron Diaz ended up with it. Wasn't she responsible for the Cartel double-cross?

[arce1988]

 I thought Diaz stole Pitt's personal money?



 She got the 20 million from the cartel too?

[The Ugly]

I thought Diaz stole Pitt's personal money?



 She got the 20 million from the cartel too?

I just assumed she had masterminded it all. I could be wrong.

[arce1988]

 Ok. Because I thought that she robbed Brad at the end, and stole all of his personal money.


 So she hired those fake cops (cartel) to steal the drugs, back from the people who stole it?

[Raymondo]

Stop fucking spoiling it.