"The Counselor" Review

If Hollywood were to produce its own “greatest hits” album, it might look something like “The Counselor”.

On the surface, the film features one of the best pedigrees in the history of American cinema. You’ve got a proven director in Ridley Scott (“Gladiator,” “Alien”), a screenplay from arguably one of the greatest American novelists of all time, Cormac McCarthy (“No Country for Old Men”), and a cast of Hollywood’s most talented players including Michael Fassbender, Penélope Cruz, Cameron Diaz, Javier Bardem and Brad Pitt.

What’s more is that the television spots during Monday Night Football make it look like the next riveting episode of “Breaking Bad.” Heck, Dean Norris even makes a brief appearance as the wholesale buyer of a large shipment of cocaine in “The Counselor.”

Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

McCarthy’s story picks up when a nameless, cash-strapped lawyer (Fassbender) invests in a big drug deal, contrary to the advising of his associates (Bardem, Pitt). Inevitably, the deal goes awry, forcing our hero into an abyss of increasingly dire straits.

In trying to create intrigue and suspense in his first-ever screenplay, it’s clear that McCarthy shouldn’t quit his day job.

A reviewer on “The Counselor”’s IMDb page put it best, saying that “McCarthy fails to realize that he isn’t writing a book here.” Real people don’t often speak in monologues, which is how most of the dialogue is delivered. As such, the story becomes bogged down under the weight of its own profundity. It’s almost impossible to tell what exactly is going on at any point in time.

The aforementioned scene with Norris feels entirely out of place, and it doesn’t help that the characters in the scene are both introduced and abandoned over the course of 3 minutes. We never see any of these guys again after Norris’s character makes the deal. That being said, the rest of the film features a colorful cast of characters inhabited by capable actors.

Diaz steals the show as Malkina, the girlfriend to Bardem’s Reiner. Her ulterior motives lend a welcome sense of depth to both her character and to the film’s final act. Diaz manages to balance confidence and initiative in a manner that’s imposing, yet undeniably sexy.

This is made apparent to, not just the audience, but Bardem’s character in a scene involving her and a car. Watching it is like watching a train wreck – it’s terrible, but you just can’t bring yourself to look away.

Trailing in Diaz’s wake is the rest of the A-list cast, each given ample time to flex their chops in what feels like a series of long-winded vignettes that serve as exposition.

In the end, I think those audience members looking for recourse after the recent departure of dear Heisenberg will be disappointed by “The Counselor.” A series of interpersonal scenes with cryptic dialogue fail to make a cohesive story apparent in McCarthy’s screenplay. It’s just boring and unengaging, which are two things that stories like “No Country for Old Men” and “The Road” certainly are not.

That being said, the cast makes “The Counselor” consistently watchable. Although with such an outstanding pedigree, “watchable” is a major disappointment.

5.5/10