Everything in director Ridley Scott's latest is so perfectly put together one would think it difficult to find any fault in it's composition as a complete package. Instead, these exceptional pieces of casting, beautiful photography, and impeccable costume designs add up to little more than a meditation on the decisions and eventual repercussions and how those actions affect the people around us through the extreme example of a man accustomed to leisure that must become a player in the business of illegal narcotics in order to keep up appearances. Little more than this has been highlighted in the unexpectedly low-key marketing campaign for a film that seemingly has all the right individual parts to make up a grand film except for the one element that makes all movies worth watching: an intriguing story, a reason to exist in the first place. Whether it be the legendary director, the fact this script comes from Pulitzer Prize winning author Cormac McCarthy in his first gig as a screenwriter, or the well-pedigreed cast that has both credible "movie stars" in Brad Pitt and Cameron Diaz while also featuring the likes of critical darlings Javier Bardem, the typically underrated Penelope Cruz, and the man of the moment, Michael Fassbender this film somehow fails to ever take off and falls completely flat while remaining nothing if not forgettable a mere few hours after leaving the theater. I won't lie in saying I held out high hopes for the film. While there are elements that stand out, performances that deserve recognition and aspects of the script that are interesting in individual scenes they, for one reason or another, are unable to build upon one another or contribute constructively to the larger narrative McCarthy is trying to accomplish. We understand the overlapping relationships and how the storylines tie in to one another, but none of it adds tension to the proceedings or even a small hint of interest into how these short vignettes will ultimately pay off for the characters taking part in them.
The Counselor is an interesting case of a movie as I would never refer to it as a necessarily "good" movie or one worth watching for its entertainment value, but it is oddly intriguing for its dedication to style and subtlety of theme that at least keeps us curious as to what exactly this beautiful disaster was trying to say.
