Film Review - The Counselor (2013)

The Counselor is directed by Ridley Scott and written by Cormac McCarthy and the story concerns the Counselor (Michael Fassbender) who proposes to his girlfriend Laura (Penelope Cruz) and who takes a job that could net him 20 million dollars, a job that could also go horribly wrong.

I was intrigued by the Counselor based off the previews I saw for the film as it looked like a dark and exciting film that I could find myself getting into, the addition of Fassbender being in the film had tipped the scales to the point where I decided to go and see the film, did it deliver the goods?

Sadly not as this film for me was a complete and total disaster, how much so, let thee count the ways:

The first reason is that the film's storyline is all over the place, scenes feel like they were pasted together from a longer edit of the film without any of the context to back them up, characterization feels very inconsistent, at times they're plotting and at other times they're sitting around drinking wine and admiring the pet Cheetahs they have and then there's the one scene where it literally feels like Ben Kenobi from Star Wars saying over it "She's had a great Disturbance in the Force, as if one single voice cried out in terror and was suddenly silenced, she fears something terrible has happened."

The second reason is that the actors themselves are a near complete bore to watch, most of the time it just feels like a bunch of A list stars indulging themselves in excess and privilege without any heart attached to it, Cruz is simply wasted in her role, Pitt does very little apart from look handsome in a Texas suit and Hat and Bardem continues his OTT acting from Skyfall.

But the real sin here is the utter waste of Fassbender, one of our finest actors at the moment and not even he can redeem this film as he just comes across as a complete bore and I just sat there thinking "How the fuck can you make Michael Fassbender boring, it just doesn't make any sense" as all he does basically is scowl, cry and recite his lines in a monotone voice, hopefully he reminds us with his next film that he truly is talented and that this is an unfortunate bump in the road of a very stellar career so far.

And the third reason is the horrible attitude the film displays at times, the first of those is the infamous Car scene hinted at in the preview which I just found to be disgusting and the other is the near complete lack of personality in the female characters, each of them are either:

A) Wearing jewellery that is just over sized to the point it looks like they're wearing a miniature jewellery store in their fingers and miniature chandeliers in their ears

B) Wearing clothing and heels that make them look like trophy women who marry only for money and not for love

and C) Just there mainly to act as a plot device and then be cast out when they're no longer needed.

I really thought we were better than this but obviously I was wrong.

There is however one thing I did like about the film and that was Diaz, she basically takes the film and runs away with it with her daring and calculating performance that seems to have found the right tone for the film whereas the other actors do not, thinking they need to be ACT-ING instead so they can be nominated for awards, give me a fucking break.

And so to wrap this up, I was not a fan of the Counselor, it was a mess story wise, boring performance wise and at times just horrible and disgusting, avoid this one at all costs as for me it's one of the year's worst films, 1 out of 5.