The Counselor :: SimplyScripts Screenwriting Discussion Board

Saw it. Decided to make a new post instead of editing the old one, lest it remain completely unseen.

If you're going to see one Michael Fassbender film this year... see 12 Years A Slave. Great film.

If you're going to see one film where Cameron Diaz has sex with a car... well, this is the only film where Cameron Diaz has sex with a car...

So, The Counselor. Man, oh man. Not good at all. Boring to the point where I almost walked out and way, way, way too long. The first half of the film is seemingly nothing but philosophical ramblings and scraps of an incredibly nebulous plot. Ridley Scott doesn't help matters. It's hard to take existential monologues seriously when there's lavishly shot cheetahs and swimsuit models running around all over the place, not to mention Javier Bardem and Cameron Diaz just look ridiculous.

The second half picks up a little and gets violent. The plot becomes more clear too but is so meager, you start to wonder why you had to sit around for so long prior to it. Essentially, it boils down to the fate of one character. But then it starts to drag again with the narrative hopping to other countries that haven't even appeared in the film yet and basically explaining the fate of other characters that were pretty much implied in earlier scenes. It takes practically forever before the credits roll.

To be fair, you can tell Cormac McCarthy wrote this. All his regular themes are there. Morality, choices and consequences, inevitability, etc. There's also bleak nihilism a plenty and a fair helping of grisly violence. There's a particular scene involving an extremely high profile celebrity that is staggeringly gory and disturbing when played out, especially when the film's had practically nothing on its bones for the past 2 hours. It's eluded to in the first act but when it comes... jeez. Sick!

Additionally, some of the ideas in the film are fairly interesting... or rather would be fairly interesting. In a book.

I think this is the main problem in the film and if I hadn't seen The Canyons earlier this year, honestly, I might not have thought of this. I think No Country for Old Men and The Road worked because they were adaptations of Cormac McCarthy novels written by screenwriters (it also helps when one of them is directed by the Coen bros). Here, it's an original screenplay, the first written by an established novelist. While Cormac McCarthy might know how to write a stellar novel, it seems he's out of his element when it comes to cinema. Ideas take the forefront in The Counselor whereas plot and clarity and even action take a backseat. In a book, McCarthy could have had all those things and no one would've thought anything of it but film's a different medium and clearly, he's not as adept in the medium.

I also think Ridley Scott was a poor choice for director. He shoots the whole thing like it's one of his epics, which does nothing for the material except take the piss out of it. So many of the visual elements feel out of place. Even Bardem and Diaz occasionally come off like they're from other films. Just incredibly bizarre appearances and performances. Misdirection, perhaps?

That said, I think all the actors give it their all. Fassbender's performance is near the saving grace of the entire film and while Diaz's character is totally off the wall, it's an extremely strange, slightly complex, and against-type performance for her.

Still, a painfully tedious watch and major misstep for both director and writer. Easily the worst Ridley Scott film I've seen. I still think McCarthy's an excellent writer but maybe he should hold off writing another screenplay before he has a better sense of what the artform requires.

EDIT:

A note for you, Kevin (and Jeff, if you're reading this). We got into a little scrap last year over the film Killing Them Softly. I can't help but feel that my experience watching The Counselor was the same experience you and Jeff had watching that film. I now understand where you were coming from back then.