Perhaps the most impressive aspect of Ridley Scott’s filmography isn’t the sheer level of films he has directed but the vast array of genres in which he has worked. There aren’t that many living directors who have made classics within the body horror (Alien), epic (Gladiator), neo-noir (Blade Runner), war (Black Hawk Down), and road trip (Thelma & Louise) genres, but Scott has managed to do all that and more. While it’s impressive that Scott continues to try new things despite already being regarded as a living legend, he’s also been given the freedom to take massive swings that didn’t necessarily pan out. Scott wrangled together Brad Pitt and an all-star cast for the crime thriller The Counselor, which has become an object of cult fascination since it was released to almost uniformly negative reviews.

What Is ‘The Counselor’ About?

The Counselor was written by the legendary American writer Cormac McCarthy, whose resume includes such classics as Blood Meridian, Suttree, and The Crossing, among others. Although several McCarthy novels were adapted into acclaimed feature films, including No Country For Old Men and The Road, The Counselor was his first project written directly for the screen. This is more than evident within the finished project, as The Counselor is written with a sort of vague, highly metaphorical style of prose that may have been better suited for a novel that could have left certain aspects more ambiguous. The loose plot revolves around an unnamed Texas lawyer (Michael Fassbender) who has a secret connection to the drug dealer Reiner (Javier Bardem) and his girlfriend Malkina (Cameron Diaz). Although the Counselor intends to propose marriage to his girlfriend Laura (Penelope Cruz), a drug deal gone wrong on the Mexican border ends up implicating him in a conspiracy.

Related The Cormac McCarthy Scripted Thriller That Time Forgot A look back at the pitch black crime thriller from the author of ‘No Country for Old Men’ and director Ridley Scott.

The Counselor is nasty to an absurd degree, as the violence that Scott depicts on screen is perhaps even more graphic than the elaborate medieval action sequences that he pulled off in Kingdom of Heaven or The Last Duel. However, the characters are also so thinly written that it is evident that McCarthy intends the narrative to be satirical; the Counselor is a cowardly, shallow person who ends up going through extreme moments of torture as a result of his greed. The dichotomy between Fassbender’s character and Cruz’s is quite glaring, as Laura is depicted as being entirely unaware of the shady deals that her romantic partner is involved in. While this may have been effective on the page where McCarthy could have spent more time fleshing out the character’s interior thoughts, the film feels disjointed and tonally inconsistent as a result.

Brad Pitt Is the Best Part of ‘The Counselor’​​​​

The Counselor is a film in which every single performance is dialed up to the extreme, with the most shocking sequence being when Diaz performs sexual activities on top of the hood of a car. Although it’s a little difficult to take The Counselor seriously as a crime thriller with the lack of narrative cohesion, Pitt is the only ensemble member attuned to what McCarthy and Scott are going for. He co-stars as Westray, an associate of the Counselor who informs him about the brewing drug war in which they may have become involved. Despite primarily being used as a tool of exposition, Westray reflects the moral depravity at the heart of The Counselor that both Scott and McCarthy seem keen to explore.

Pitt brings a blunt, self-seriousness to the role in The Counselor, making it darkly hilarious when he spews out the most vile, nihilist dialogue imaginable without breaking a sweat. It is often said that Pitt is a character actor trapped in a leading man’s body, as his wilder performances in Burn After Reading and Twelve Monkeys suggest that he’s often at his best when he is not trying to be the hero. The Counselor may have been a film destined to provoke extreme responses, but Pitt manages to make something interesting out of his role and walks away from the project with his dignity intact.

The Counselor is available to rent on Amazon in the U,S.

Release Date October 25, 2013 Runtime 117 Main Genre Crime Writers Cormac McCarthy Tagline Have You Been Bad? Expand

Rent on Amazon