Review of The Counselor (2013) by Pat L — 31 Jan 2014

Ridley Scott and Cormac McCarthy's, The Counselor, is a colossal disappointment considering the quality in front of and behind the camera, and is the true personification of the phrase, "You can't polish a turd.

", indicative of the film itself. Ridely Scott's direction is as always, nicely shot, edited, framed and is certainly easy on the eyes. Scott is definitely a competent film maker capable of true greatness, evident in films such as Gladiator and Alien.

The ensemble cast of Michael Fassbender, Brad Pitt, Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruiz, and Cameron Diaz, all do generally a good job with the material they were given, with special attention payed to Fassbender and Diaz.

Fassbender flawlessly pulls of the dire melancholy of the situation he has found himself in, and Diaz totally nails her seductive trifle persona effortlessly. However, good acting and directing can only take a film so far when the script is absolute garbage.

McCarthy may be a wonderful novelist who is capable of creating profound lines, but when given the task of telling a story through dialogue McCarthy chugs. The dialogue makes absolutely no sense almost all the time and characters and plot points quite literally come out of nowhere, with no proper introduction and closure.

Some lines in the film are quite good, especially Diaz's finally monologue about survival in an ever changing world, however each conversation before that brilliant monologue has almost nothing to do with the plot.

Random scenes of pointless dialogue are spewed every few minutes and are needless to say pretty awful in terms of pacing. The Counselor is a competently directed and acting filmed murdered by the worst, most perplexing script in the past decade.