Review of The Counselor (2013) by Steve M — 10 Sep 2014

THE COUNSELOR is a visually stunning movie with good performances by its star-studded cast, but the overly talky nature of the film made it feel like a collection of scenes rather than a cohesive movie.

The story is rather simple: An unnamed lawyer, referred to only as "Counselor" (Fassbender) gets more than he bargains for when he enters into a one-time drug deal. Most of the movie is composed of these philosophically heady conversations and salacious anecdotes.

While I would expect a movie to have some of these attributes, having a movie almost entirely composed of them starts to wear down on you a little bit. Fortunately, there were a few moments that moved the story along.

Even still, they were few and far between (especially with the extended cut I watched). One part I thought was slightly miscast was Cameron Diaz as Malkina, Reiner's (Bardem) cheetah-loving mistress.

There was an icy quality to her character and performance, but I didn't really buy her as somebody who wasn't American (she was supposed to be Argentinian). There are also several glorified cameo roles where they show up, talk for a little bit and then exit the picture.

Most of the what they said had nothing to do with the story at all, and only served as mouthpieces for Cormac McCarthy's heavy-handed dialogue. Speaking of the dialogue, the script was the first one written by McCarthy directly for the screen, and it shows.

He may be a high-caliber novelist, but he sorely needed someone to keep his style in check (like the Coen Bros. on NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN). Ridley Scott did an impeccable job as usual in delivering a visually compelling film, with a few great action sequences (as well as one scene with Cameron Diaz which I will not spoil.

..suffice it to say, you won't have seen anything like it before). However, the script supporting it just isn't disciplined enough to the make the movie work like it should. One other nice thing I could say is that I enjoyed the score, which punctuated at all the right moments and was never overpowering.

Generally speaking, I count this as an interesting misfire. It's definitely worth one watch, but no more.