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The Counselor (2013), R, 1 star

The Counselor is in a bit of a messy situation.
I was honestly excited about this movie because of the grand scale of epic proportions that the title character has to deal with balancing his clients and the characters he loved. A movie with a great cast wets your appetite because they can bring something fresh to the table and on to the big screen. The surreal experience of anticipating for a wildly insane movie based on a trailer is just tempestuous until...you have actually seen the movie. And going forward, this was one was kind of a confusing downer.

The movie starts out with a nameless Counselor (Michael Fassbender) flirting in Shame mode explicitly with his girlfriend, Laura (Penelope Cruz), while lying in bed. They both just communicate in dirty sexy language, so...um...anyway, moving on. The Counselor goes on a business trip to Amsterdam, but he's actually meeting with a jewelry and diamond dealer in order to conduct a transaction to purchase an engagement ring. Of course, when he comes back to the U.S. the Counselor proposes to Laura and accepts.

Later, he goes to a party at a penthouse where he meets the owner, Reiner (Javier Bardem), and Malkina, his girlfriend (Cameron Diaz). They go at lengths to talk about how fortunate the Counselor was to have a law degree and go the distance. Reiner even discusses that the Counselor does not use his knowledge to establish the power he retains in order to negotiate anything during a situation with a client.

He also meets Westray (Brad Pitt), a business associate, to discussing investing a deal for a good price involving drugs. Westray does warn the Counselor about meeting with the Mexican drug cartel and they do not react and favor too kindly to lawyers. Counselor meets another person in jail (Rosie Perez) who begs to him to get his son out of jail for speeding. Of course, during all these meets, there is a subplot regarding Malkina to employ a person to steal some drugs paralleling with one of the Counselor's clients. Uh oh!

Fassbender and Cruz are having a fancy dinner.
Oh, boy, where do I start? This movie has no soul and is very mean-spirited and disgusting regarding its tone. I'm shocked to see that this is Cormac McCarthy's first script and the result is not remotely close to the brilliant Coen brothers film No Country for Old Men. I felt like there is no resonant poetry or nostalgia in the story like for example, the ambiguous ending regarding Jones' character illustrating a dream to his wife. Also, there are holes in this plot where we find out an event, it is not even mentioned anymore.

All these actors are talented. I think that Michael Fassbender is just putting his suave figure to the test while communicating with Cruz's character. Fassbender and Cruz just do what they can with its love story but it's really set aside. Javier Bardem kind of gave the best performance in the movie and he has some good lines. Diaz looks miscast as the evil girlfriend and it was unnecessary to perform to most random and explicit sex scene with a Ferrari. It took guts, but, it was embarrassing. And, Pitt felt like he was in another movie. Filmmakers could make a movie out of his character.

Ridley Scott is an exceptional director and I mean, he has made great films. His style, though, gets in the way of this bleak entertainment with the rapid suspenseful shots and the clarity in the actors' reactions. This is one of his weak and disappointing films. But, I blame Cormac McCarthy's disorganized and messy script. I know it tried to produce the theme of good versus evil and the echoes of Shakespearean acts of one's avarice. I'll give him that, but, the result is an unimpressing and monotonous wasted use of time. This is the most disappointing film of the year.

*

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