The Counsellor

The Counsellor (from Weird and Wonderful II: Fifty More Cult Films by George Hughes, available from www.freefall-productions.com) 

2013 / US-UK / 138 minutes

“I always liked smart women but it’s been an expensive hobby.”

Director: Ridley Scott / Screenplay: Cormac McCarthy / Director of Photography: Dariusz Wolski / Music: Daniel Pemberton / Production: Paula Schwartz, Steve Schwartz, Ridley Scott and Nick Wechsler for Scott Free Productions / Cast: Michael Fassbender (The Counsellor), Penelope Cruz (Laura), Cameron Diaz (Malkina), Javier Bardem (Reiner), Brad Pitt (Westray), Dean Norris (Buyer), Ruben Blades (Jefe), Natalie Dormer (Blonde), John Leguizamo (Randy).

As one of the most acclaimed directors working today, Ridley Scott has been in the perfect position to pick and choose his projects for the past twenty years. With dozens of potential “Next films” always in the running at any one time, Scott had been working with various screenwriters to adapt Cormac McCarthy’s epic 1985 Western novel, Blood Meridian for several years (we’re still waiting for the book to make it to the screen) when, in the early 2010’s he was contacted by McCarthy himself.

   The novelist had hit a wall with his latest book and decided to write a screenplay instead (heavily promoted as being his first ever script but McCarthy had actually written at least one teleplay in the ’70’s). A crime thriller titled The Counsellor, Scott immediately read and bought the screenplay and fasttracked it past the queue into production as his next feature. Immediately attracting a top notch cast (many of whom took smaller roles than they usually would to work with Scott and McCarthy), The Counsellor had a lot invested in it.

   The result is one of Scott’s most polarising but, for my money, most interesting pictures of recent years. Beginning on the US / Mexico border with an unnamed lawyer known throughout only as “The Counsellor” (Michael Fassbender) proposing to his girlfriend, Laura (Penelope Cruz), the film gradually reveals that he’s working for drug dealers connected to Mexican cartels and looking to get away with his own, “One- off” deal.

   Of course, it all goes horribly wrong- just as the Counsellor’s clients Reiner (Javier Bardem) and Westray (Brad Pitt) repeatedly warned him it would, especially after Reiner’s unpredictable girlfriend Malkina (Cameron Diaz) gets involved. As his associates start getting dispatched in increasingly gruesome ways (as Westray explains, “It’s never personal”, the cartels just have to “Keep up appearances”), the Counsellor races to save Laura before she becomes the next target…

   Scott had been simultaneously working with Fassbender on his Alien prequels and cast him in the lead role above the better known supporting players to preserve the Counsellor’s everyman status. But as tempting as it is to root for him and as hard as it is not to feel for him, the character- like Daniel Craig’s similarly nameless white collar dealer in Layer Cake (2004)- is ultimately motivated by pure greed (all while pretending he’s not a criminal himself because of a respectable reputation).

   Penelope Cruz, on the other hand, plays the film’s only innocent main character (so naturally ends up suffering the worst fate). That said, Laura would have to be pretty stupid not to have some idea how the Counsellor made his money (and dialogue in the script that never made it to the final cut would have revealed that she’s an estate agent- which would have seriously negated audience sympathy).

   As it is, Cruz doesn’t get a great deal to do in The Counsellor but the film’s other high profile female lead is outstanding. A lot of critics claimed Cameron Diaz was miscast as the duplicitous Malkina but I think that this was more a case of audiences not accepting her as anything else after two decades of indifferent rom-com roles. It’s actually a great example of “Stunt Casting” working well and Malkina’s one of the most icily deadly femme fatales of the 21st Century.

   Much of the film’s humour comes from Reiner and a story about Malkina is a particular highlight, all delivered in Javier Bardem’s naturally funny and exaggerated style (he had his lines translated into Spanish to perfect them in his own first language before delivering the dialogue in English). His comical haircut (based on Hollywood producer Brian Grazer’s) and ridiculous wardrobe- including shirts not so much loud as making an unholy racket- all add to the effect. And, as a homage to Bardem’s previous role as a Bond villain in Skyfall (2012), Reiner’s pet cheetahs are called Raoul and Silvia.

   Meanwhile, Brad Pitt (who first worked with Scott on 1991’s Thelma & Louise) gives a deceptively nuanced and deliberately underplayed performance as the world weary Westray. An ageing modern day cowboy, Westray is pretty much Pitt presenting us with a version of himself, a long- running success now somewhat bored with his wealth and status who actually seems to come alive only when challenged (unfortunately, by a threat to his life).

   Largely filmed in London interiors cheated to look like Mexico and Texas, The Counsellor uses minimal second unit footage shot in Spain and the southern US to complete an effective location illusion. The violence- when it happens- is short, sharp, shocking and entirely unglamorous (Scott was aiming for a cross between Scarface and The French Connection and even mentions John Carpenter as an influence during his DVD commentary). As it turned out, a lot of The Counsellor’s more extreme content was too much for distributors but Scott later restored everything cut for the theatrical release in his inevitable director’s cut.

   The unrelentingly bleak tone in the final act and the incredibly harsh ending were also among the chief complaints of critics far too used to the usual thriller routine. Personally, I’d say the ending shows- in a good way- that this was not a film written by a trained screenwriter working by the numbers. It’s plotted much more like a novel and the great characters and dialogue make it “Actors’ Cinema” of the highest order.

   Whether The Counsellor really needed such a great visualist as Scott to direct it is another debate but who are critics to be telling a filmmaker which films he should be making? And without his enthusiasm for the script, it would probably still be waiting to get made. As it is, I’d put The Counsellor right up there with Black Rain (1989) and American Gangster (2007) among Scott’s best “Real World” films.