The Counselor (2013)

[baumer]

They're interesting and challenging on paper. It's the execution that ends up at times ludicrous and questionable but it's the director's deed, not the actor.

 

I'm going to have to call bullshit on this.  Before the director yells action on one scene, the actors have to read the script and there has to be something in that script that interests them.  The script for this cow manure would have stank so bad.  I mean drug dealers who tell you about time and space and the vortex of the verisimilitude of the coagulation of an apodictic measure of grated nanoseconds that represents life....please, spare me. It's like the Architect from Matrix Reloaded made a cameo appearance as every single character in this film.

Edited October 26, 2013 by Halloweenbaumer

[baumer]

In fairness to Pitt, who wouldn't want to work with Ridley Scott with a Cormac McCarthy script? 

 

Seeing this tomorrow, hopefully I get something out of it. 

I can honestly say that this is one film that we will agree on.

[Deep Wang]

In fairness to Pitt, who wouldn't want to work with Ridley Scott with a Cormac McCarthy script? Seeing this tomorrow, hopefully I get something out of it.

A nap maybe.

[RichWS]

Oooooh boy....this fucking movie. I'd call it an entrancing folly. A few hours later, the whole thing seems kinda like a weird dream. Once the bartender starts giving his own monologue about death, I thought "I'd be okay never seeing this again." Scenes meander at their own pace, yet the narrative is pretty straight-forward and there's not much to it. The male actors are all fine, although Cruz doesn't get anything to do and Diaz can't handle the weight of her role. It's like a lost Sharon Stone performance.

 

I had the honor of seeing this with my mother, the first film we've seen in two years. We agreed afterwards Fassbender going down on Cruz was more awkward than Diaz riding the car. We (and everybody around us) were cracking up during that one.

Edited October 27, 2013 by RichWS

[kitik]

Just got back. What a strange movie.

 

I kind of liked it, but that was the exact opposite of a crowd pleaser.

 

There were a couple interesting themes in there like knowing what people want and accepting the reality of the situation, but they didn't quite fit together neatly. But I think that was part of the point. You may want something specific from a movie, but you're getting this instead. If you can accept that, you can look past the questions you have and enjoy this movie for what it is.

 

I think a lot of moviegoers will equate this movie a bit with Prometheus. If you want, you could ask a lot of questions about backstories and plot details in both movies. But in neither movie were those answers supposed to be relevant. I think it worked a lot better in Prometheus, but I can see a similar theme here. 

[The Stingray]

I mean drug dealers who tell you about time and space and the vortex of the verisimilitude of the coagulation of an apodictic measure of grated nanoseconds that represents life....please, spare me. It's like the Architect from Matrix Reloaded made a cameo appearance as every single character in this film.

 

That sounds like something Floyd from True Romance would talk about. And hey, he was a drug dealer. Or was he just a drug user? Cant remember.

 

I had the honor of seeing this with my mother, the first film we've seen in two years. We agreed afterwards Fassbender going down on Cruz was more awkward than Diaz riding the car. We (and everybody around us) were cracking up during that one.

 

Even weirder, than you watching a movie like this with your mom, is you discussing cunnilingus and car-sex with her.  

[dashrendar44]

I'm going to have to call bullshit on this.  Before the director yells action on one scene, the actors have to read the script and there has to be something in that script that interests them.  The script for this cow manure would have stank so bad.  I mean drug dealers who tell you about time and space and the vortex of the verisimilitude of the coagulation of an apodictic measure of grated nanoseconds that represents life....please, spare me. It's like the Architect from Matrix Reloaded made a cameo appearance as every single character in this film.

 

Did you ever wonder that's exactly because of this thing you call "bullshit" that enticed Pitt to sign on? Because it was kind of a "drug cartel movie" that doesn't play like your typical "drug cartel movie" and wants to subvert all your expectations at every corner with offbeat quirks and mannerisms...

 

Yeah, I still stand by my stance, it's challenging on paper. It might have interested Pitt to pull off Cormac McCarthy's shit as an actor. Maybe Pitt thought that got the potential to turn a Rutger Hauer's performance alike in Blade Runner discoursing on the sight of the Gates Of Tannhauser at the edge of his character's death...

 

I don't find it that weird from the actor that likes to star in challenging movies that make 2 cents at the BO and leave most people numb like Tree Of Life, Killing them softly, Babel, Assassination Of JJ...

 

In France, there's a saying to qualify those extreme situations: "ça passe ou ça casse!", you can translate roughly as "Make or break". I guess it's the latter for most people...

Edited October 30, 2013 by dashrendar44

[dashrendar44]

That sounds like something Floyd from True Romance would talk about. And hey, he was a drug dealer. Or was he just a drug user? Cant remember.

 

He was a pothead. His brain was too fried to churn out deep aphorisms about the nano influence of quantic physics and Higgs Boson on cooking space cakes in the relative tissue of the space time continuum.

[The Stingray]

[dashrendar44]

[The Stingray]

Nobody (no big star at least) has a more diverse and quality output than Brad Pitt. Dude doesn't play it safe, and more often than not, he wins.

[Michael Gary Scott]

Worst movie of the year. What a mess. 1/5

[Leyla]

B-

[Goffe]

this film made little sense at first*, but it's so well acted and well directed that I, surprisingly, enjoyed it. B (70)*(almost) everything is explained on IMDB boards

Edited November 4, 2013 by Goffe

[CaptainJackSparrow]

Wow, there is a vote for every letter grade!Except A..

Edited November 4, 2013 by Tarzan

[Goffe]

Wow, there is a vote for every letter grade!Except A..

done 

[4815162342]

Worst movie of the year. What a mess.1/5

 

It really must be a bad film then

[Jake Gittes]

Saw it a couple of hours ago, still turning it over in my mind. I don't think it's either a worthless failure or a misunderstood masterpiece; I had little problem following the basic plot, and I understand how McCarthy wanted to subvert the typical drug-deal-goes-wrong movie (as a friend of mine perfectly described it, "there's a scene in No Country where we don't see Brolin get killed, only the aftermath; in The Counselor, every scene is like that").

 

At first I didn't like how Fassbender and Cruz were ridiculously underdeveloped, but soon I understood it was on purpose and it at least partially worked, as the characters are very beautiful, soft and tender creatures who find themselves in the land of predators and get mercilessly devoured. On the other hand, this is also where both characters' blandness works against them, because you need them to be well-developed in order to create a drama out of their predicament, and here I never really cared about Fassbender's ultimate fate, and even when he received the DVD, it was only kinda sad instead of devastating/horrifying.

 

Another problem is Scott's direction, or should I say lack thereof, because apart from a couple of compellingly staged scenes (they also happen to be violent and silent), the film doesn't have much of an identity and only serves McCarthy's words; that leads me to suspect The Counselor would be a pretty good novel, but it's not very good cinema since the screenplay so completely overwhelms everything else. Still, you can't accuse it of not being its own thing, and there's definitely something here to chew on.

 

One thing's for sure: as far as nihilistic, subversive crime thrillers go, Killing Them Softly was written, directed and acted a whole lot more coherently and effectively, and was a genuinely great movie; The Counselor, at its best, is a flawed curiosity.

[Jack Nevada]

Pretty good. Fuck Cameron Diaz, though.3/5

Edited November 18, 2013 by Jack Nevada

[Hatebox]

I still kind of want to see this. Can it be enjoyed as pulp, or is it really that bad?