Review of The Counselor (2013) by Jeremyp — 01 Nov 2013

Entering the Cormac McCarthy world is not dissimilar to entering Dante's Inferno as painted by Breughel, or Dali. The best way to view it is to sit back and watch the evil as it is displayed while listening to the morality tale as it unfolds from the chorus of actors who put McCarthy's words to life.

This one is about the long and unerring reach of a Mexican cartel who, if we believe the movie, have eyes and ears better than the NSA, and a brutality that exceeds the Taliban. Fans of McCarthy know that the violence is as inevitable as it is preposterously excessive.

This time he sends us a telegram in the early going about just how it will occur. and then it's just up to the viewer to decide whether the message was worth delivering. For me it wasn't. The endless philosophizing about death, evil, and the inevitability of justice "Cartel style" wasn't just depressing but boring.

Oh it's stylish enough and Ridley Scott has a great visual bag of tricks, but it's choice of looking at evil with sophistication simply shows it's banality, and that wasn't the point of the movie. Cormac over reached and it shows in the lack of dread as the action unfolds, and dread is usually McCarthy's forte.