Movie Review: The Counselor

[nafod]

As is typical with HBO, while surfing I stumbled on to this at the halfway point or so.

Michael Fassbender, Brad Pitt, Cameron Diaz, Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz. I'd never heard of it, and yet in scene after scene another star. Script is by Cormac McCarthy (I learned later), which explains the awesome dialog to go with the excellent acting. Ridley Scott is the director, so it looks good too.

The gist of the plot is that The Counselor (you never learn his name, kind of like The Driver movie) tries to make a bunch of money on drugs and now has to live with the fallout. His phone call with Ruben Blades is worth the price of admission alone. Yet HBO only had it as a 1-star movie. Fuck the critics, each of the scenes are little masterpieces, actors firing on all cylinders. Maybe the total plot is a little off, I don't know since I've only seen half the movie. But so what.

Here's a shot of Penelope Cruz receiving oral sex, in the part of the movie I didn't see. But will soon.

[TerryB]

"Penelope Cruz"

[nafod]

OK, it's been 24 hours. Anyone else see it yet?

This is the dialog between Jefe and the counselor, at the center of the film. Total Cormac McCarthy.

JEFE I would urge you to see the truth in your situation, Counselor. That is my advice. It is not for me to say what you should have done. Or not done. I only know that the world in which they are are made. You are at a cross in the road and here you think to choose. But there is no choosing. There is only accepting. The choosing was done long ago.

...

JEFE Do you love your wife so completely that you would take her place upon the wheel? Not die for her. That is easy. But that your nerve would not fail you as they bend to buckle the straps?

COUNSELOR Yes. Yes, damn you.

Silence.

JEFE That is good to hear, Counselor.

COUNSELOR What are you saying? Are you saying that this is possible?

JEFE No. It is not possible. Si. Un cafecito. Por favor. Negro. Negro, si. Gracias. I’m sorry, Counselor.

COUNSELOR You said I was that man. At the crossing.

JEFE Yes. At the understanding that life will not take you back. I have no wish to paint the world in colors more somber than those it wears but as the world gives way to darkness it becomes more and more difficult to dismiss the understanding that the world is in fact oneself. It is a thing which you have created, no more, no less. And when you cease to be so will the world. There will be other world. Of course. But they are the worlds of other men and your understanding of them was never more than an illusion anyway. Your world – the only one that matters – will be gone. And it will never come again. And now I must go. I have calls to make, and then, if there is time, I will take a little nap.

And of course Cameron Diaz dry humping a Ferrari.

[Grandpa's Spells]

Great cast. Widely shat-upon film.

[Bedlam 0-0-0]

****possible spoilers*****


I'm a big fan of Cormac McCarthy. I saw this in the theaters and again on HBO when they released it. I really like the story though some of it was a bit tough for me to discern at first. The part about the cartel being able to make 20m on a snuff film in relation to the counselor's wife and the money the cartel could have lost went right over my head the first time through. There were other parts of the story that weren't quite clear to me until I watched it again but the dialog is really great and for me the focal point of the movie.

I liked all the actor's performances except Diaz. I'm not sure if Fassbender wanted her to play her part so oddly and forced but I found it a bit distracting although fucking the car made up for it. Overall, a great and maligned movie. Now if they would just try to make Blood Meridian into a movie....

[Holland Oates]

Holy fuck! Blood Meridian would be epic.

[Bedlam 0-0-0]

Heck yes it would be. http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/ ... c-20131025

“It would have been rated double-X”

Some people have said Blood Meridian would be unfilmable. McCarthy squashed that idea in another interview saying,

That’s all crap. The fact that’s it’s a bleak and bloody story has nothing to do with whether or not you can put it on the screen. That’s not the issue. The issue is it would be very difficult to do and would require someone with a bountiful imagination and a lot of balls. But the payoff could be extraordinary.