The Counselor

Overview

Mother once said: "If you've nothing nice to say, say nothing at all." On that basis, it's likely The Counselor will receive little to no press coverage whatsoever.

To begin with, then, something nice. When production first began, this movie was promise itself. Potential made manifest. One of those films where every ingredient seemed perfect: directed by Ridley Scott, written by Cormac McCarthy and starring everyone you've ever heard of.

Then something went wrong. Badly. In fact, in that respect the film closely reflects the story of the film, where a well-conceived drug deal completely falls apart to the ruin of many. To suggest, however, that this was Scott's masterful meta-direction would be far too generous. No, in more realistic terms, The Counselor is simply an incoherent piece of crap. 

It opens with a sex scene, and a none-too-subtle one at that. But just as it is in real life, sex in film requires at least a modicum of foreplay. With the darkness of the cinema only seconds old and the choc-tops largely intact, the audience was still drier than the days-old popcorn kneaded into the lining of its seats.

Why this scene was in there, let alone as the movie's opener, remains entirely unclear. If its goal was to establish Penelope Cruz as a sexy woman, then Scott should probably have taken that 'as read'. If it was to set Michael Fassbender up as someone who likes to talk dirty, please break the emergency glass and retrieve your copy of Shame. 

Then comes the second scene (don't worry, this won't be a scene by scene account — nobody's that cruel), during which yet another crazy-haired Javier Bardem character sits alongside a cheetah-tattooed, gold-toothed, hombre-haired Cameron Diaz as they watch an actual cheetah hunt its prey. In case you missed it: yes, that's a metaphor. Then Bardem says, "Don't you think that's a bit cold?" to which Diaz replies, "The truth has no temperature." Together they stare off into the distance, as if silently aware that way off in that distance, the audience is already laughing at them. 

Finally, the third scene. Fassbender now discusses the purity and majesty of diamonds with a diamond expert in Amsterdam. Their attention turns to a particularly beautiful specimen which the expert calls his "cautionary diamond", saying "The flaws are there, but they are not visible." So, as the saying never goes: just like a diamond, getting involved with Mexican drug cartels might seem like perfection, but in the end one should exercise caution, because Mexican drug cartels are actually terrifically hard and can cut things. 

Ridiculous as it sounds, that is honestly the closest The Counselor gets to having a point: don't get involved with Mexican drug cartels, because it will probably end badly.   

There really isn't a whole lot more to say about this movie. Almost tragically, Cruz's performance is magnificent, representing one of The Counselor's few redeemable features. Bardem is similarly impressive, but everyone else either phones it in (Brad Pitt) or gets buried under impossibly dense dialogue (Diaz's script is, almost without exception, stupefying).

With Scott at its helm, of course it looks fantastic and the action sequences are suitably menacing, but as the credits roll you find yourself shaking your head and wondering: what the hell was that actually about?