Review of The Counselor (2013) by Brandon S — 14 Mar 2017

Plenty of all stars on both sides of the camera, as well as lots of sex appeal-Cameron Diaz has rarely looked better-but that's about all The Counselor offers.

The pacing is horribly disjointed; the narrative bizarre; the character motives unlikely; and the "thrills", a.k.a, the various methods of murder, are unapologetically Hollywood. The film obviously wants to ram a message down the audience's collective throat, but I'll be damned if anyone can discern what that message is exactly.

Perhaps the film's greatest shortcoming is that, despite being promoted with it's stellar cast, the story is not character driven at all. It quickly devolves into a turgid mess hellbent on emphasizing the pitfalls of greed through repetitive, and decidedly meaningless, murders.

The Counselor is a bleak, incomprehensible narrative-centric picture that was sold to unsuspecting audiences as a sexy thriller chocked full of elite stars, crafted by proven filmmakers moviegoers have come to trust. It hoodwinks and disappoints all the way through to the very end. Like so many of the characters within it, this movie is utterly irredeemable.