Don't listen to the critics! The Counselor is a bleak and unrelenting thriller of the first order that serves as an excellent companion piece to Cormac McCarthy's award winning No Country For Old Men. If the latter movie traces the beginnings of the drug war in Texas in the early 1980's then The Counselor serves as its inevitable aftermath; the drug trade has made many of its players rich and the competition has made killings far more widespread and fiercer than ever. With more money being made the more dangerous it has become- bankers and unscrupulous politicians are now in on the take and so the stakes have gone past heaven.
In this potential nightmare scenario exists the title character played by Michael Fassbender, he is a highly successful defense lawyer with a somewhat naive fiancée played by Penelope Cruz and his shady coterie which consists of a wisecracking middleman named Westray (Brad Pitt), nightclub owner and part time dealer Reiner (Javier Bardem) and his viper of a girlfriend Malkina (Cameron Diaz). The counselor is in a bit over his head due to his lavish lifestyle and so decides to do one drug deal to pay off his debts. Of course, with these amoral characters the inevitable betrayal begins and we follow each and every one as the downward spiral ends in a bloody orgy of pain and death.
Cormac McCarthy's novels have always been about life and death and the decisions one takes that leads to their respective outcomes- his books are perfect analogies of existentialism. With this, his first original screenplay, McCarthy essentially goes over the same territory that he covered in No Country For Old Men but this time everything has gone corporate- the Mexican Cartel now controls the drug trade in the southwest United States and anyone who dares to cross its path will face an unrelenting army of thugs and assassins until they meet a gruesome end. This pervading sense of doom permeates the entire movie and does not let go; I think the reason why most critics didn't like this film is because there is no humor, no catharsis to pull back the nihilism that pervades the entire storyline. Whereas in No Country For Old Men, the Coen brothers were able to inject their dark humor into the movie, Ridley Scott's directorial skills in this film allows no such reprieve.
Fassbender is excellent as the title character; its clear that all his skills as a top defense lawyer has come for naught as he gets involved with things way beyond his expectations; seeing his breakdown into a broken man is a thing to behold. Bardem is as quirky as ever as his best buddy Reiner- his tinted eye glasses, psychedelic clothes and puffed up hair is perfect for the role. Brad Pitt is adequate as the knowledgeable Westray (who seems to be playing a variation of the bounty hunter character that Woody Harrelson played in No Country For Old Men) but its Cameron Diaz who steals the show as the cunning and sociopathic Malkina- she seems to be the new embodiment of death- sultry, seductive and deftly using everyone towards her ultimate goal. Even the bit parts are played by popular actors such Dean Norris, Bruno Ganz, Rosie Perez, John Leguizamo, Edgar Ramirez and Ruben Blades.
In this potential nightmare scenario exists the title character played by Michael Fassbender, he is a highly successful defense lawyer with a somewhat naive fiancée played by Penelope Cruz and his shady coterie which consists of a wisecracking middleman named Westray (Brad Pitt), nightclub owner and part time dealer Reiner (Javier Bardem) and his viper of a girlfriend Malkina (Cameron Diaz). The counselor is in a bit over his head due to his lavish lifestyle and so decides to do one drug deal to pay off his debts. Of course, with these amoral characters the inevitable betrayal begins and we follow each and every one as the downward spiral ends in a bloody orgy of pain and death.
Cormac McCarthy's novels have always been about life and death and the decisions one takes that leads to their respective outcomes- his books are perfect analogies of existentialism. With this, his first original screenplay, McCarthy essentially goes over the same territory that he covered in No Country For Old Men but this time everything has gone corporate- the Mexican Cartel now controls the drug trade in the southwest United States and anyone who dares to cross its path will face an unrelenting army of thugs and assassins until they meet a gruesome end. This pervading sense of doom permeates the entire movie and does not let go; I think the reason why most critics didn't like this film is because there is no humor, no catharsis to pull back the nihilism that pervades the entire storyline. Whereas in No Country For Old Men, the Coen brothers were able to inject their dark humor into the movie, Ridley Scott's directorial skills in this film allows no such reprieve.
Fassbender is excellent as the title character; its clear that all his skills as a top defense lawyer has come for naught as he gets involved with things way beyond his expectations; seeing his breakdown into a broken man is a thing to behold. Bardem is as quirky as ever as his best buddy Reiner- his tinted eye glasses, psychedelic clothes and puffed up hair is perfect for the role. Brad Pitt is adequate as the knowledgeable Westray (who seems to be playing a variation of the bounty hunter character that Woody Harrelson played in No Country For Old Men) but its Cameron Diaz who steals the show as the cunning and sociopathic Malkina- she seems to be the new embodiment of death- sultry, seductive and deftly using everyone towards her ultimate goal. Even the bit parts are played by popular actors such Dean Norris, Bruno Ganz, Rosie Perez, John Leguizamo, Edgar Ramirez and Ruben Blades.