Review of The Counselor (2013) by Diego T — 20 Feb 2014

There seems to have been a sudden rise in Pulp Fiction gangster wannabes that think they're smarter than they are. 2012 saw Killing Them Softly, and 2013 has Runner Runner and... this thing. The Counselor is an unbearably melodramatic, uneventful, and oddly self-important movie that has no right to think that it's anything more than a really dumb crime flick. For some reason, it throws in dozens of totally random subplots and scenes, completely diluting any point it was trying to make, and by the time Cameron Diaz starts having sex with Javier Bardem's car (yup, you heard that right), the audience literally couldn't care less.

The Counselor plays out like some kind of weird mumblecore movie that just so happens to have completely stilted dialogue and uninteresting characters. Michael Fassbender stars as the titular character, who becomes involved in an overly convoluted drug deal that skips over important points at the drop of a hat and instead spends far too much time on unnecessary expository dialogue. Fassbender and his friend (Bardem) enlist a drug smuggler (Brad Pitt) to engage in a massive drug deal, but the plan goes south when the cocaine is stolen and the cartel thinks that The Counselor himself is to blame. A long, obnoxious series of deaths ensue, and at the end Cameron Diaz of all people wins. There. Now that I've laid it all out for you, please don't waste your time.

I'm sick and tired of seeing films that have a weird agenda to push. Okay, crime doesn't pay. We get it. But the weirdly obsessive way that writer Cormac McCarthy goes about showing this is unnervingly over-the-top. It makes one think that McCarthy has some personal vendetta against the drug trade, or against lawyers, or trophy wives, or any of the dozens of categories of people he paints in an unflattering light with this movie. His exhaustingly boring screenplay makes even the most interesting parts of the story nearly impossible to sit through. I don't need a fucking explosion every five minutes, but I do require something to actually happen in the movie. And virtually nothing happens throughout this colossal waste of talent and energy.

I can't stress enough how boring and exhausting this movie is (I'm yawning just writing this review). You'd expect more from director Ridley Scott, who in the past has given us such triumphs as Alien and Blade Runner. Oh, right-- that was back when he was good. This movie just continues his downward spiral into mediocrity, which is truly a sad thing. The film would certainly be passable if Michael Bay directed it, because it would truly exceed expectations at that point. But as it is, the great cast and talented director raised the bar far higher than the movie could jump. Even the cinematography is off, with oversaturated colors and unpleasant visual schemes in all the scenes. Nearly every aspect of this movie is repulsive, and if you saw it in theaters, I feel sorry for you. Thank God for Megashare.

Final Score for The Counselor: 2/10 stars. I never thought a movie with this much talent on display would turn out this boring, shallow, uneventful, and pretentious, but apparently I was wrong. It is such an obnoxious and overcalculated borefest that one wonders just how McCarthy thought it could live up to the standards set by No Country for Old Men. It has its moments, brief as they may be, but altogether this movie is unimaginative and bland. Brad Pitt dies a pretty awesome death (even better than in Meet Joe Black and Burn After Reading), but none of the good scenes serve a story worth telling or one that is even remotely interesting. This movie isn't even worth watching to see how bad it is-- it's just boring as shit.