Mark Keresman, Bad Movie, July 2014

The Counselor

In addition to ICON, Mark Keresman is a contributing writer for SF Weekly, East Bay Express, Pittsburgh City Paper, Paste, Jazz Review, downBeat, and the Manhattan Resident.

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There’s a sub-genre of movies—call them neo-noir, or at least that’s what their makers want them to be—in which people, amateurs really, get involved in illegal affairs and find themselves in over their proverbial heads. The Counselor is one such, and it’s got a pedigree: Directed by Ridley Scott; starring Michael Fassbender, Brad Pitt, Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz, and Cameron Diaz, and a script by acclaimed novelist Cormac McCarthy. Yet, it’s a turkey, albeit one in nice-looking feathers.

The Set-up: A successful lawyer, known only as The Counselor (Fassbender), decides for reasons unclear to get involved in a big-time drug deal involving the Mexican drug cartels…surely you’ve heard of them. Naturally, things Go Badly, and The Counselor is shocked—shocked, I tell you—when he seeing his exceedingly comfortable life turn into a living Hell. Sounds like the basis for a good movie, right? Wrong. For one thing, it’s been done many times and better—The Last Seduction, to name one. Which is no big deal in and of itself as there are only so many plots to go around. It’s the execution that stumbles badly.

For one thing, writing a screenplay is different than writing a novel—this is McCarthy’s first screenplay. Words that might look impressive on the printed page can sound really awkward coming out of allegedly real people’s mouths. Simply put, this is another movie in which the viewer can come away with the revelation: Nobody talks like this in real life. Few people—excepting some writers—talk in monologues. Nearly everyone talks cryptically, yet no one says, “Hey, can ya repeat that in plain English?” Admittedly, I’ve little direct knowledge of the behavior of wicked, merciless organized crime barons, but I doubt these are the kind of guys that easily slip into philosophical lectures on the nature of life, free will, morality, and responsibility. I mean, look at Whitey Bulger or John Gotti—do they seem like they’d be into Kierkegaard or Nietzsche? There’s also a bedroom scene between lovers—the aforementioned Fassbender and Cruz, in which Cruz speaks not like a grown woman but instead like a simpleton teenager or a trailer-park debutante.

We never really know why The Counselor gets involved in this drug deal—and not so coincidently, the details of which are never really made clear. It’s not like he’s some desperate character in dire need of cash—he wears Armani, lives in an apartment/condo that could contain 12 of my apartment, drives a very nice set of wheels. Greed? Boredom? We never learn…speaking of which, The Counselor’s associates, played by Pitt and Bardem, repeatedly and endlessly warn him that he’s getting involved with people who, if displeased, would just as soon eat his liver with some fava beans and a nice claret. Yet, he reacts with uncomprehending dismay when the poop hits the fan—who’d’ve thunk it? Getting involved in a deal with Mexican drug gangsters that think nothing of assassinating public officials who annoy them, and bad things are happening to me—who knew? You can see how it’d be kind of difficult to have any sort of investment in this character. (As I stated in this column before: I don’t expect to “like” every movie’s central character, especially if they’re evil or jerks—I just think they should be interesting.)

As to interesting, movies like this usually have a femme fatale, the siren who lures our Sailor of Destiny to crash on the rocks of Reality—this film’s siren is played by Cameron Diaz. Cameron Diaz?!? While I think she’s a decent-enough actress—especially in light comedy roles (see In Her Shoes)—Diaz is way out of her depth as a cunning temptress. She’s made up to resemble a jungle cat (stealthy huntress—subtle, huh?), she dry-humps a car (that’s right), and recites some of her lines as if she can recall them but she doesn’t know what they mean. Clearly, this is the stuff that dreams are made of. [slight spoiler ahead] Brad Pitt is the character who “knows all the angles”—he is dressed like a polyester cowboy, after all—yet when things crumble he hides out in London (world-class/international city—“Nobody’ll think of looking for me there”) and is conned far too easily by a mini-siren.

The Counselor is a dopey movie in the cheesy guise of a smart one, an example of getting a bunch of talent in one place and seeing it (pun intended) go to pot.