Just because Cormac McCarthy succeeded with No Country for Old Men doesn’t mean his movies are any good. I went alone to see The Counselor because Julie thought it would be too violent. She was right. Here goes:
The Counselor (Michael Fassbender, Penelope Cruz, Cameron Diaz, Javier Bardem, Brad Pitt, Rosie Perez) – No Country For Old Men was a wonderful movie – dark, violent, tense, compelling. The Counselor is not. Cormac McCarthy wrote both so I had great hope for this star-studded film from famed director Ridley Scott. Wrong.
McCarthy often pontificates in his screenplays. Characters are stuck with long, cryptic, vague, and esoteric dialogue that turns plot into a rambling series of glimpses into the seamy world of drugs, sex, and excess. For No Country, the characters were bigger than life, almost cartoonish. With the Coen brothers at the helm, The Best Picture of 2007 (it received the Academy Award in 2008) was a run-and-chase masterpiece with surprises at every turn.
The Counselor is a mess. Set in El Paso and Juarez, the movie is an homage to every stereotype imaginable about Mexicans. Of course, this is familiar McCarthy territory (No Country, All the Pretty Horses). We’re introduced to a well-dressed, articulate, soft-spoken lawyer always referred to as “Counselor.” We never get a real name, even as the film opens in a sexy, nudeless bedroom scene with Laura (Penelope Cruz), the woman with whom he is smitten. We are led to believe that she is all he lives for. He is totally devoted. But at the same time, he has decided to cross the line to the dark side, working with a client named Reiner (Javier Bardem). We never learn his first name; we just know he is in the refuse business, which smuggles drugs from Mexico. Reiner is very strange and lives a lavish lifestyle with his paramour, the slinky, devious, manipulative Malkina (Cameron Diaz).
Malkina has cast a spell over Reiner. He is captivated, amazed, befuddled, and surprised by her even as he tries to control and dominate her. Good luck, buddy. She and the Counselor have some history but we don’t know what. McCarthy makes sure we won’t find out. Malkina checks out Laura in the one scene that reunites the Vanilla Sky female stars.
Amidst this intriguing world of the rich and famous frolicking in the sun and dabbling to drugs, diamonds and hazardous waste, we meet Westray (Brad Pitt) but I couldn’t figure out how he and Counselor know each other except, perhaps, as client and perp. Pitt is in long hair, ponytail mode, yet another character who speaks in riddles and essentially tells the Counselor that he is doomed.
Then we meet Ruth (Rosie Perez), an inmate in a local prison. She is a court-appointed client of the Counselor who wants to see her son, who roams the Southwest in a motorcycle and has been imprisoned for speeding. The Counselor pays the bail, setting in motion an impossible set of circumstances that leads to the demise of most of the movie’s characters.
For those who want to sit through the next hour, good luck watching the spiraling life of the Counselor and his circle. It’s painful and occasionally laughable. Of course, it is massively bloody.
To avoid all of this, save your money and stay home. You will not be cheated. If you are curious, wait for the film to come out on DVD or pay-for-view; it won’t take long. This film is going to tank at the box office just like the last film written by McCarthy, The Road.