The Counselor

Eine elegante Grausamkeit. Ein Zusammenstoß von einer luxuriös angekleideten Welt eines Anwalts, der käuflich ist und die weibliche Unschuld liebt, und der mexikanischen Kartell-Hölle. Ridley kommt mit einer nicht actionmäßigen Auffassung des Konflikts, er arbeitet vor allem mit Dialogen. Er möchte nicht die Emotionen berühren, sondern den Intellekt und sogar die Philosophie. Die Beweggründe der Figuren werden nur angedeutet; die Erwartung ihrer (uneindeutigen) Reaktionen und die Lösungen der spannenden Situationen sind der Antrieb des Films. Das Philosophieren gelingt dem Film nicht besonders gut, aber er unterhielt mich mit der Schauspieler- und Bildgrazie. Wenn die Konturen der Handlung schärfer wären, würde ich vier Sterne geben. Camerons gespreizte Beine auf der Frontscheibe wird man nicht vergessen. Guilty pleasure bei der Oberflächlichkeit. (23.12.2013)

Brad Pitt plays a bastard, Michael Fassbender plays a bastard, Javier Bardem is both a pervert and a bastard. Penelope Cruz is good, especially in the beginning, but on the other hand she is not there that much. Cameron Diaz plays such a bitch that it made me sick. Nevertheless, all the acting performances are great, I just don’t really know who to focus on in order for the movie to appear at least a little bit likeable. This way it is Ridley Scott’s most unpleasant movie for me, and it doesn’t matter that it has an interesting story when I’m not able to enjoy it with these actors. (21.06.2014)

Or: how the best living oversees writer and the best living British director didn’t really see eye to eye in matters of art. Each of them does their own thing regardless of the other. And so Cormac rolls out all the screenwriters’ tricks ignoring the purely symbolic metaphorical and existential level which is full of ambiguous characters, holding up mirrors, hidden motivations and declamations seemingly about nothing, but in reality about redemption, damnation, the (im)possibility to choose and predestination and its thriller storyline represents just a necessary (but smarter and more true to life than it might have seem), all connecting excuse. The other one concentrates on what makes sense from the genre film making point of view and so he doesn’t care about the characters, the message, let alone the symbolism of the movie. The result is so unique, peculiar and well casted (apart from that one exception that breaks the rule... Yes, I’m talking to you Cameron) that in some circles it’s on its way to becoming a cult movie and for rest it’s doomed to remain misunderstood, damned and heading the Razzies. (27.11.2013)

I will not stoop to commenting on the senility of Ridley Scott, because there are plenty of users aping similar big-mouthed statements from foreign reviews about last year's Prometheus. That said, it is still true that I am quite disappointed. Not that Ridley forgot how to direct – but that he is simply unrecognizable in The Counselor. It is all just Cormac McCarthy's self-absorbed screenplay, materialized into lazily rolling dialogues, framed by a pretty good side plot and very inconsistently cast. While Michael Fassbender and Brad Pitt carry everything, Cameron Diaz turns out to be a casting misstep unlike any I can remember. Every gesture or word feels forced and wooden, making all the smaller positives (the soundtrack, the action flashes) almost forgotten. Given the creative team, I can't believe I'm stooping so low, but when even I, who easily let myself be captivated by the story, can see through the random fragments to the very end, something is wrong. (27.11.2013)

With this film, I had to watch the key scenes over again to catch on and make all the motivations, behind-the-scenes games, and alliances click for me. The key moments were not the shootouts or executions of the film characters, but the dialogues. Carefully crafted and sophisticated dialogues, like when I eagerly played the conversation between the lawyer and the cartel boss three times to savor the subtle play of a predator toying with its prey. The Counselor was made for a specific layer of educated and tuned-in viewers, definitely not a film for a broad audience, and I wouldn't hesitate to label it a cult film in the original sense of the word - not as a commercially successful film, but rather a film that captivates a small group of connoisseurs. While Scott's Prometheus was downright dumb, The Counselor is a smart film. It's smart to the point of being annoying and unsympathetic. It's like a cross between No Country for Old Men and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. It shares the same screenwriter and deals with the world of drug cartels and underworld characters, and it also has a narrative style that is difficult for the viewer to digest. The absence of characters to root for, for example, doesn't help. The only positive character who accidentally enters the world of dirty dealings is mercilessly crushed by events, and the rest of the twisted characters are simply competing to see how far they can go in their depravity. The screenwriter doses out information in small bits and keeps much to himself; you simply have to infer and process things where you would prefer to just consume. In any case, the final form of the film is much more influenced by Cormac McCarthy than Ridley Scott. I do have a few criticisms, for example, that the casting of the stereotypical actress Cameron Diaz wasn't reasonable, although thanks to the director's guidance, it didn't bother me too much. Scott knew what she was capable of as an actress and didn't burden her. Her sexual performance, which may be the icing on the cake for some viewers, felt unnecessary and cheap to me, and in a few other scenes, the crew wanted to play a little bit at being Tarantino. But from the originally intended four stars, I give it five because I won't hesitate to help a film that is so severely underrated. Overall impression: 90%. (08.04.2017)

I think that people today won’t get this movie. It’s intended to be deep, but it’s terribly superficial. Which results in tense friction between both surfaces. The Counselor demonstrates just how Hollywood Scott’s style is. McCarthy wrote an incredible screenplay that breaks all the rules, unfortunately he didn’t make sure that the director applied the necessary parable to the movie. For something like that, I think someone else would be more suitable, Nicolas Winding Refn seems to me to the best choice. Personally, I like Scott’s style, so I was able to get over this point. The cast that he put together is admirable, but it maybe goes against the type proportions of the actors themselves. Fassbender is unusually nice, the evil that they talk about consists of just greed and snobbery. Pitt is fine, although a bit forced in places. Reiner is completely wrong for Bardem, he doesn’t play the role badly, but he’s simply the wrong type. Penny Cruz should be younger and more crazily in love, but she doesn’t make much of an appearance. And then there’s Cameron Diaz as Malkina. A monstrous, calculating bitch and probably the second most important character. McCarthy has probably never written a stronger female part. And Diaz took it on with flying colors. She’s good at swines, but Angelina would have suited better. And now we come to the biggest problem, which is the age rating. The Counselor hovers cleverly along the edge of the 15 rating, but this makes all the murder and sexual tension too sterile. The scene with the Ferrari is special and well delivered, but it doesn’t have the necessary shock effect that the characters talk about. Any torture in this movie is just talked about. It could be due to the artistic intention, but this takes away the credibility, the chilling edge of the picture. What’s the point of polished dialogs about death and doom if we see almost none of it? The Counselor isn’t a bad movie, it’s just too strange to like. (02.12.2013)

A very tough and uncompromising film full of references, philosophy, life wisdom and truths, going against any audience trends, expecting a high level of intellect and the ability to read between the lines. Ambiguous, unclassifiable, yet sometimes hypnotic and captivating. For someone without insights in life, a film about nothing. For the rest, a strong experience. Saw the extended version. (09.02.2014)

So sehr ich die Werke von Ridley Scott (sehr) und Cormac McCarthy (sehr) mag, muss ich doch sagen, dass ich The Counselor für einen unglaublich eingebildeten Film halte, der das Publikum (etwa in dieser Reihenfolge) unterhält, langweilt, langweilt, unterhält, langweilt, unterhält, langweilt und langweilt. Es macht mich traurig. Man kann nicht sagen, dass McCarthy etwas ausgesprochen schlecht geschrieben oder Scott etwas schlecht aufgenommen hat. Die Schauspieler*innen haben auch nicht schlecht gespielt. Ich wäre aber viel zufriedener gewesen, wenn McCarthy anstelle vom Drehbuch ein Buch geschrieben hätte, in dem ich mir seine Dialoge in Ruhe durchlesen könnte. Ich hätte die Möglichkeit, zu ihnen zurückzukehren und mehr über sie nachzudenken. Wenn mich nämlich so ein heftiger und erdrückender Strom von Dialogen wie bei diesem Film überflutet, fühle ich mich dabei gar nicht gut. Das ist schade. Jetzt bleibt mir nichts anderes übrig, als die Buchversion des Drehbuches zu kaufen, sie zu lesen und dann dem Film eine neue Chance zu geben. Vermute ich. (29.11.2013)

The basic problem with The Counselor is that Cormac McCarthy didn't write the movie script. And yet his writing is strongly recognizable underneath it all. Here, too, the characters are not really characters, but vehicles for the monologues that The Counselor follows and is confronted with. From that perspective, if the film can be compared to anything, it's Linklater's Waking Life. However, unlike Waking Life, here the key to deconstruction is still the main storyline, which even at the end has too many unknowns and is most likely counting on the viewer adding up the variables because of the way the characters have been sketched. Sure, The Counselor is unlikable – it is, after all, too ruthless and bleak and, more importantly, it translates that elusiveness of the Mexican business code in all its glory and, despite a certain tendency in Brad Pitt's character, realizes that there is no way to bring that code to a Western audience. If The Consultant were a book and someone capable of adapting it decided to do so, it would be just another No Country for Old Men. (05.03.2014)

Gentlemen Scott and McCarthy tried, that's for sure, the actors tried even harder - all the familiar faces here give absolutely brilliant performances - but in the end, it's still the screenplay that fails under Scott's direction. It's sometimes very brutal, surprisingly quite perverse, but some characters appear as the script needed, the viewer most of the time has no idea what it's actually about. The whole time I kept thinking that as a book, it could work great, but in a movie, the audience simply doesn't have the time to contemplate it. I'll have to find that book sometime. (09.12.2013)

Slightly in the "O. Russell" vein, a chatty conversation piece that very slowly tightens all the screws and is truly brilliantly plotted. At last a pretty decent role for Cameron Diaz after a hell of a long time. In general, all of the casting is exceedingly well done and watching everyone in action is intoxicating. Ridley Scott has come up with a slightly different version of an excursion into the world of narcotics and the mafia, relying on sometimes unnaturally constructed dialogue with often philosophical undertones. With a few exceptions, there are no distinctive action scenes, and basically the whole time it creates a rather bland and insipid impression. On the other hand, it seems to me that this is what the charm of the whole film is largely based on, and the play with the viewer really comes down to when you're mostly saying to yourself: "This is great, properly creepy and interesting dialogue, but when is something going to happen or when is something decent going to happen...?" At a certain point (it almost feels unintentional) the screws really start to tighten and there are some pretty cool explicit scenes. Bottom line – The Counselor is definitely not for everyone, it's actually quite a specific (maybe even slightly experimental) taste for connoisseurs. I don't consider myself a connoisseur, and I still enjoyed it very much. (03.06.2018)