This past Thursday, the new film “The Counselor” was released with an all-star cast and exceptional creators. The movie tells a tale of greed and how far humans are willing to go to achieve what they want. Centered around a lawyer who has gotten mixed up in drug dealings, “The Counselor” puts its characters in situations they never imagined, forced to make difficult choices for their own survival. It was released to a rash of mixed reviews. Though the cinematography, writing and acting are excellent, “The Counselor” does portray the human condition as being more tumultuous and violent than it is in reality.
The script was written by Cormac McCarthy, the author acclaimed for his novels such as “The Road”, and the film was directed by Ridley Scott, known for “Alien” and “Gladiator.” McCarthy’s ability to write complex and realistic characters is truly evident throughout the film, from Michael Fassbender’s (“Prometheus”) Counselor, who is a lawyer that glorifies his own actions, to Cameron Diaz’s (“There’s Something About Mary”) Malkina, who is the beautiful arm candy of a drug dealer with hidden aspirations of her own. Scott, known most recently for the infamously bad “Prometheus” always knows how to present an utterly stunning picture on the screen, but sometimes flounders in his use of the phenomenal actors at his disposal. With such experienced actors, Scott should have pushed them to their full potentials rather than focusing more on aesthetically pleasing the audience.
Besides Fassbender and Diaz, “The Counselor” also has such famous faces as Javier Bardem (“Skyfall”), Penelope Cruz (“Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides”) and Brad Pitt (“World War Z”). Bardem is Reiner, a drug dealer with a taste for the lavish, such as the two cheetahs that he owns. Cruz is Laura, the fiancée of Counselor, who chooses to believes his blatant lies to absolve her own worries. Pitt is Westray, another man mixed up in the drug dealings who seems to be the most willing to accept the real nature of the human condition. All are complex characters with varying motives, whether they be selfish or selfless.
The most powerful character throughout “The Counselor” would have to fall to Diaz though. In the introduction to her character, she appears to merely be a trope to supplement the character of Reiner, but on further reveal, Malkina knows more than she lets on. The most chilling scene of all occurs near the beginning of the film, when Malkina and Laura are talking together about each other’s boyfriends and religions. Though she tries desperately to understand where Laura finds her faith in religion, Malkina is so utterly disparaged that she sees it as another place to lash out her anger and thinly veiled thirst for psychological violence.
No one in this film is truly innocent or guilty- McCarthy’s multifaceted fictional creations mirror the truth of the world. Sometimes, people make poor decisions and are forced down a path they never would have agreed to originally, a story similar to that of Walter White from the TV show “Breaking Bad.” The viewers are allowed to choose who they stand behind in this violent epic.
Despite its harsh projection of the world, “The Counselor” is still a compelling story that could apply in some aspects of life. Yet many people do not have pet cheetahs or a thirst for Columbian cocaine, so the film is fundamentally difficult to apply to one’s own life. “The Counselor” definitely could have capitalized on different aspects of the film to ensure its acclaim, but even though it fails to do so, it is still an interesting way to step away from everyday monotony for two hours.
