The Counselor (2013)

Touches You

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

This is one of my best movies. It has an all-star cast and Ridley Scott directing. It looks great, it's novel, creative and entertaining. And beautifully written.I don't really understand the lukewarm reception unless viewers found the plot confusing. I have to say I've seen it more than once so it all seems clear now. Once you know whodunit it all falls into place. The scene where the counselor is talking to the cartel man is worth it alone. There's the sex, of course, but strangely I didn't find it off-putting. Normally I don't like sex in movies, they detract from the plot, but in this film it seems quite par for the course and appropriate to that world.It's also not as dumb as it looks. Once you know, all the clues are there. That's the sign of a well-written plot, where, despite the clues being given to you, still you're never quite sure till the end. So I like this film although it may ultimately be for the more discerning viewer. And that may well account for the mixed reception and low score.

Don't waste your time! Pretentious garbage with over the top dialog, a plot full of holes. Garbage!

Seems most audiences that fell for this one needed a counselor to unravel the mess it left in their heads. For a mainstream movie, they don't come much grubbier than this. I've never understood the regard some folk hold for director Ridley Scott, who proves with this shoddy work how overrated he can be. As for highly esteemed writer Cormac McCarthy - perhaps at 84 it's time to hang up his pen. Character motivation is largely unexplored and the situations bounce from one glib, almost impossible to understand circumstance to the next. The highest ideals for any of these characters run in the order of greed, avarice, booze, drugs and obsessive sexual obscenity of the most perverse nature. Cameron Diaz is beginning to look as ugly as the foul morality she tends to represent, Penelope Cruz basically appears to represent little more than a woman for a bed - shared by Michael Fassbender in an unnecessarily overdone opening section. Brad Pitt's by-the-numbers role is not much more than a station on the way and could have gone to any number of lesser names. Fassbender's ridiculous decision to play for deathly high stakes with merciless drug cartels offering a deal with a 4000 x return rate (yes you read right!) at least it gives him a chance to show some fear- filled remorse - with possibly one of the better performances in this jigsaw puzzle with too many missing pieces. If your most endearing inspirations for living are superficial greed, perverse sexuality, fashion, drugs or how many people you can cruelly murder, then you could find something to identify with here. Otherwise, save your brain and time, find something else to watch and leave this to the criminal element and biker gangs but, even they may prefer to go ridin'.

Despite the many negative reviews, I think 'The Counselor' is an excellent film overall and probably one of Ridley Scott's best films. Cormac McCarthy has written a highly poetic, literary, and philosophic screenplay that explores humanity's heart of darkness: drug trafficking (which relates to arms trafficking and human/sex trafficking), greed, vanity, extreme violence, social Darwinism, survival of the fittest, etc.Philosophically, the film is extremely dark, perhaps the darkest movie I have ever seen, reminiscent of '8MM,' 'Apocalypse Now,' and 'No Country for Old Men.' In this film, the most evil people prevail and the less evil people are hunted and devoured. The counselor's fiancée, Laura (Penelope Cruz), represents innocence, virtue, and Christian faith and yet she ends up getting abducted, decapitated, raped, and discarded in a landfill. Then the counselor (Michael Fassbender) receives a DVD snuff film starring his fiancée.In contrast, Malkina (Cameron Diaz) represents the strong, ruthless, merciless, manipulative, Darwinian predator. She has cheetah-print tattoos on her back and two pet cheetahs. In her dialogues with Laura and the Catholic priest, she taunts her prey. Even though she sets into motion a plan to steal a Mexican drug cartel's shipment of cocaine, which fails, she evades their attention and ends up prospering. In the end, she celebrates her success and concludes the following:"The hunter has grace, beauty, and purity of heart to be found nowhere else. You can make no distinction between what they are and what they do. And what they do is kill. We, of course, are another matter. It is our faintness of heart that has driven us to the edge of ruin. Perhaps you won't agree, but nothing is crueler than a coward. And the slaughter to come is probably beyond our imagining."In other words, we humans should cease with our "faintness of heart" and cowardice (e.g. morality and compassion) and embrace social Darwinism and survival of the fittest. The strong should dominate and prey on the weak (e.g. the innocent, virtuous, and faithful). They should embrace their status as predators. After all, in Malkina's view, if you do not embrace social Darwinism, you will just end up being slaughtered by someone who does embrace that worldview and acts effectively. In that sense, for those who are weak-willed or weak- stomached, the "slaughter to come is probably beyond our imagining."Overall, Malkina is a narcissistic, Machiavellian sociopath or psychopath and thus embodies the "Dark Triad" traits. Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler, and other leading Nazis also demonstrated these Dark Triad traits, and they often appealed to social Darwinism when trying to justify their war-mongering and their Final Solution: the systematic extermination of 11 million Jews, gypsies, blacks, homosexuals, etc.However, one should never forget that Hitler and many other leading Nazis came to a bad end (e.g. suicide or the death penalty) and that the Nazis absolutely failed to achieve their ultimate objectives: defeat communism, conquer the entire continent of Europe (including Britain), and create a thousand-year Reich (German empire). In the long term, the Nazis sabotaged and destroyed themselves. Similarly, quite often, Machiavellian sociopaths or psychopaths like Malkina (or the high-level cartel members) end up destroying themselves or being destroyed (i.e. murdered). Arguably, this shows that extreme social Darwinism, sociopathy, and psychopathy are unsustainable, counterproductive, and self-defeating in the long term. Contrary to the film, evil or at least evil individuals do not prevail in the long term. As Martin Luther King Jr. said, "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice."In conclusion, I consider 'The Counselor' an excellent, literary, philosophic film with very dark themes. If you are seriously depressed or having mental health issues, I strongly recommend that you avoid this film. It can be difficult to digest even if you are a mature, mentally sound adult. Figuratively, it punches you in the gut. As Westray (Brad Pitt) says, "I've pretty much seen it all, Counselor, and it's all s***."