The Counselor Review

There's one reason people get in the drug business, its big money. In 1971, Richard Nixon declared the "War on Drugs" in an attempt to stop all illegal substances from making their way past American borders. Forty two years and over one trillion dollars later, the war on drugs has been a complete and utter failure. Drug smuggling and violence related to this so called war is at an all time high; but while smuggling is illegal and even immoral, it's still a business. And like all businesses there are people behind the curtain who are pulling the strings. These people are some of the most dangerous humans on earth; with a snap of their fingers they can end your world. If you stand in the way of their money they will make you move whether you want to or not; because at the end of the day, it's just business. The Counselor primarily takes place in the south-west United States and northern Mexico. The central piece in this story is a seedy layer known only as the Counselor. After representing some very shady people, the Counselor ends up befriending and even going into business with some smugglers. During the course of all this, he ends up meeting a beautiful woman named Laura who he proposes to during the events of the film. One day his friend Reiner offers the Counselor a true position in his organization to where he can make some real money; running low on funds he accepts. The Counselor later goes to one of his clients in jail who tells him that her son was arrested on a speeding charge and asks him to pay the 400 dollar fine to get him out. He agrees but later the son ends up dead. It turns out the son works as a runner for the cartel; and he was given a device that ultimately leads his killers to a 20 million dollar shipment of drugs. Since the Counselor was the one that bailed him out, he's the cartels number one suspect. The Counselor realizes that his only option is for him and his fiancé to run; unfortunately his enemies won't make that an easy task. The Counselor was a movie that flew under my radar up until a month ago, but when I heard about it I was immediately interested. Directed by the legendary Ridley Scott and the a screenplay by Pulitzer Prize winning author Cormac McCarthy plus a great cast, this movie had all the potential in the world. So what do you get when you combine an Oscar winning director, an all star cast, and a screenplay from one of America's greatest living authors? You get an absolutely terrible movie. I'll start out with the good: Michael Fassbender, Javier Bardem, and Brad Pitt do the best job they can with the material they were given. And I will say I like the cinematography, I think Ridley Scott did a good job with the way the movie was shot. Other than those two things the movie does everything else wrong. Probably the biggest problem would be the horrible screenplay. The dialog between the characters is abysmal and often pompous. It feels fake and incredible forced; there isn't one decent line in the entire movie. Penelope Cruz and Cameron Diaz co-star and neither do a particularly good job. Cruz's character is in the movie just so there can be some sort of love interest for Fassbender (The Counselor). And Diaz's character is just awful, she's written so over the top and she over acts to try and compensate. On top of that she might be the worst written character in the entire movie. None of the characters are likable and by half way through the movie you just don't care what happens to them. The movie is also very boring; it takes a good 45 minutes for anything of real interest to happen. Quite a bit of the stuff that happens in the movie seems very trivial and unimportant; a lot of it doesn't seem to pertain to the story. And there are several characters that are introduced that have no real relevance to the story, they're just there to move to the next plot point but are ultimately unnecessary. The Counselor has been the single most disappointing movie of the year, in the end it's just a waste of potential. I was hoping this would be one of the best movies of the year but it turned out to be one of the worst. If you're planning on going to the theater in the next week, there are a lot of better choices than The Counselor. 

Pros: Decent acting from some of the stars, good cinematography.

Cons: Terrible screenplay, horrendous dialog, poorly written female characters, introduction of characters with no purpose, quite a bit of useless content, very boring.

1/5 Stars