The Counselor

I've lived a pretty easy life.  I'm white, American, Protestant, straight, and upper-middle class. I have a car, insurance, and a comfortable bed to sleep in.   I have never wondered where my next meal would come from, and I have had to fight little to get to where I am today.  In my day-to-day life, it is easy to forget that most people are not as fortunate as I am.  It is easy to forget that my food is cooked by immigrants who must work three jobs to support their families.  My clothes are made by bruised children in dingy sweatshops.  As Leonard Cohen sings, old black Joe is indeed still picking cotton for my ribbons and bows.

It is refreshing, then, to be reminded of my place in the world; to be reminded that my success and comfort come at the price of others' failure and pain.  Ridley Scott's The Counselor is such a reminder.  Though the film deals with drug runners, cartels, and morally ambiguous lawyers, the themes feel relevant to daily American life.  The story is brutal and otherworldly, but it deals with familiar characters who believe, as does Kathy Lee Gifford, that plausible deniability will fool Saint Peter.  The film begs the question, "Can one live in a world without being a part of it?"  Can we blindly benefit from suffering without becoming complicit?

Michael Fassbender's character, known only as "The Counselor," seems nice enough at first.  He has a beautiful fiancé, played by Penelope Cruz.  Yowza.  If she were my fiancé, I would never leave the house... Anyway, he has a sweet setup: girl, job, and good looks.  But, like all of us, he wants more.  He puts his life savings into a drug smuggling venture, hoping for a large return.  Of course, his plans go awry, and he finds himself in over his head.  He learns that a man is what a man does.  He cannot benefit from the drug world without supporting murder and torture.  Like so many classic characters in literature, he has blood on his hands, and that damned spot doesn't wash out so easily.

And this film does feel quite, uh, literary.  It is not surprising that the screenplay was written by one of our greatest living authors, Cormac McCarthy.  While this is his first screenplay, it seems to be just another part of his bibliography.  Like No Country for Old Men, it follows a character as greed destroys his life.  Like The Road, it looks at the fragility of our human existence.  Like Blood Meridian, it explores the blood and darkness that this country was founded on, the darkness that still exists today.

Being a McCarthy fan, I enjoyed the film immensely.  The dialogue is strange, beautiful, and funny.  The characters are unique, yet identifiable.  The plot is twisty, violent, and filled with coincidence.  However, many film viewers will find this film dense, pretentious, and confusing.  And they have every right to say that.  At many points, the dialogue moves pasty preachy and right onto the soap box.  Most every character is a poet philosopher, ruminating on humanity, nature, and beauty.  So much of this pontificating is alienating and does not lead to the most immersive of film experiences.  Still, Cormac McCarthy is so damn talented that I love to hear his prose read by some of Hollywood's best actors.

Michael Fassbender, Brad Pitt, Penelope Cruz, Javier Bardem, Bruno Ganz, Rueben Blades...I could fill the rest of this review just by naming the film's stellar cast.  It seems that every scene features some other amazing actor, performing at the top of their game.  Man, does Brad Pitt keep getting better or is it just me?  In The Counselor he channels the body language of Dennis Hopper in Blue Velvet.  He projects the cool danger of Steve McQueen.  Damn, he's good. In any other film, he would have acted circles around his costar.  However, he is paired with Michael Fassbender, one of the best in the business.  This guy can turn on emotion with the flip of a switch.  One moment, he is literally charming the pants off a girl; the next, he is bawling his eyes out.  Add in an insane and complex performance by Javier Bardem, and that is one heck of a leading cast.

It doesn't hurt that these actors are being directed by Ridley Scott.  He has had a rough couple of decades with crap films like Kingdom of Heaven and Prometheus bearing his signature.  Now, it appears the Ridley Scott of Alien, Blade Runner, and Thelma & Louise has returned.  Few can create atmosphere like Scott.  His directing of actors makes this feel like a Mamet play mixed with a Paul Schrader film.  Imagine Glengarry Glen Ross meets American Gigolo.  Woah, that's a good idea for a movie...Never mind.  There is a bizarre cadence to the scenes that creates a sense of unrest and tension.  His composition is clean, crisp, and filled with detail.  I can think of at least five frames of the film I would like to print out and hang on my wall.  One features Michael Fassbender, in close-up, standing in front of a Triumph motorcycle.  The scene's conversation deals with modern masculinity, and this image is both literal and cinematic.  Beautiful stuff.

Again, some may find this film to be a bit too "literal" and preachy.  However, these are things that need to be said.  The Counselor is jumbled and sometimes feels more like a book than a film, but it is easily one of the best pieces of fiction I have read or seen this year.  This is an important story that challenges our American blind comfort.  It is sad that, after leaving the theater, I began to forget where my clothes were made and who cooked my food.  Perhaps I need to be reminded again.  I hope there are more films like The Counselor that can do so.