It's very rare that a film comes equipped with this kind of pedigree, with the director of Alien, Blade Runner and Gladiator directing a script from the man who brought us No Country For Old Men and The Road, not to mention that stunning cast line-up. Who in their right mind wouldn't get their hopes up for a modern classic? Well, prepare to be disappointed, as The Counsellor is a bit of a mess that just happens to feature some of the hottest talent Hollywood has to offer. A hot mess, if you will.
One of the biggest problems with the movie is that it does a really piss-poor job of telling us exactly what is going on. The characters are well defined, but their motivations and relationships with each other are not. From what we can gather, Michael Fassbender is a lawyer with some money problems and a fiancée (Cruz) that he wants to keep happy, so he gets involved with his shady, nightclub owning friend Reiner (Bardem), his sexually aggressive girlfriend Malkina (Diaz) and know-it-all fix-it-man Westray (Pitt) and their dealings with a massive drug smuggling operation. Things, as they tend to do in these situations, go awry.
McCarthy is a fantastic novelist, but it quickly becomes apparent that writing dialogue is not his strong suit. Too many times we find characters saying out loud what might have sounded deep and/or cool as part of a character's internal monologue, but when said out loud, becomes laughably pretentious.
Scott's direction helps a little, thanks to his trademark glorious visuals, but he is essentially filming five beautiful people in some very beautiful locations. It takes over an hour for any sense of atmosphere to kick in, when the setting, the crimes and the sudden meticulousness to events will remind you of Breaking Bad, but by then it's too late; the damage has already been done.
It's not that there's nothing to like about The Counsellor, as there are fleeting glimpses of the modern-day Chinatown to be found, but they are just glimmers of a diamond held too far out of reach. The excess of talent on board this project is matched only by the excess of disappointment you'll feel when the end credits begin to roll.