The Counselor

Cormac Mccarthy’s stories seem like they are written specifically for old people; which is weird because all of his stories create this dark, terrible, and depressing world. This is the last thing old people need to read, if anything they should be the ones watching Care Bear movies or something uplifting, as their time on this Earth is limited. And the Counselor looked to be more of the same when I first saw the trailer, especially when I noticed that they had Penelope Cruz and Cameron Diaz cast as the main women in it. At the time I made the awful joke “This looks like No Perky Boobs for Old Men”.  Hey, I told it was awful! I will however admit that Penelope Cruz is still beautiful but it looked like Cameron Diaz was doing everything possible to look like a desperate and evil cougar!

Back in the day I could understand Diaz getting roles because she was young and she was hot.  But it’s not like she could ever act. So now that she’s old and not as hot, she certainly shouldn’t be getting cast in roles that require someone to bring depth to a character. In this movie she plays the role of Malkina, a smart, resourceful, sexy, and conniving woman who is linked to Reiner (Bardem), the Counselor’s connection to the drug trafficking game. The problem is, it’s hard to see Diaz as someone who is smart, and in every scene that requires her to be sexy it just comes off as laughable. There is one scene in particular where she has sex with Reiner’s car (yes, you read that correctly) and it just comes off as sad because she looks like the 40 year old stripper who just started the 4 am shift. Now I don’t mean to bag on Diaz, I actually really like her, but for roles that are made for her. You could tell that she put in the work and tried her absolute best but in a key role like this, if you fail at it, it affects the entire movie.

The Counselor is a movie about greed and how it ultimately leads to man’s downfall. And in this particular case it destroys everything that is good and promising in the Counselor’s life. From a technical standpoint this movie is solid, as you would expect nothing less from a Ridley Scott film. He starts you off with a clean slate by showing you in the opening shot, two bodies that are intertwined in white sheets and  in all white room. You see Fassbender and Cruz in a rather steamy sex scene and you can instantly tell that they are in love. But from that point on, it is all downhill for the couple as you are introduced to shady characters and darker settings. For reasons that are never fully explained, the Counselor needs more money, and the easiest way for him to attain this is to get into this rather large drug deal. Despite multiple warnings from both the middle man (Brad Pitt) and Reiner, he decides to move ahead with deal and it leads to disastrous results.

The premise if the movie is great, the problem however is in the execution. There is little to no action in the movie, it’s just one boring existential conversation after the other. Imagine listening to Morpheus talk to Neo about the Matrix for 120 minutes but take out the agents and the woman in red. Or, and I didn’t think this was possible until I saw this movie, imagine if Tarantino decided to make an even more boring version of Jackie Brown. “I didn’t know you liked the Delfonics.” “They’re pretty good.” Each conversation is important when it comes to setting up the ending but once it finally arrives, you’re either asleep or you simply don’t care anymore.

Now that I think about it, maybe this movie is good for old people. McCarthy fills it with funny jokes about sex and who knows, maybe that will stir up some muscles or some limbs that haven’t been stirred in years. I rate this movie as WEAK and suggest you go watch Nic Cage’s 8mm instead. That movie sucks too but the Cage is like Pace Picante sauce, however long it's been since you've seen one, it's been too long.