In Need of Advice
El Paso attorney known as Counselor (Michael Fassbender) has a good life and a gorgeous girlfriend in Laura (Penélope Cruz). But Counselor is friends with Reiner (Javier Bardem) and his girlfriend Malkina (Cameron Diaz) and it is because of Reiner that Counselor finds himself getting involved in a major drugs deal involving a tanker packed with cocaine and a middleman by the name of Westray (Brad Pitt). When things go wrong Counselor finds himself having to protect himself and his girlfriend.
I struggle with movies which intentionally push you away, which want you to be kept at arms length from the characters and as such I really struggled with "The Counsellor" a movie which seems to stick 2 fingers up at the audience and says if you don't get me I don't give a s#@$. Now maybe it is just me, maybe my cinematic tastes have come full circle and having once wanted movies to challenge me now I just want to be entertained in a cinematic sense of I know what I like and I like what I know. But it seems I am not the only one who has struggled with "The Counsellor" because for what ever reason this Ridley Scott movie full of beautiful people barely rates average with those who have watched it.
The thing is that "The Counsellor" has all the boxes ticked. We have a complex plot with a few twists, some nice location shots with cinematography which seems to lap up the sun drenched sands of the desert. And "The Counsellor" has a seriously popular cast which screams commercial appeal with Michael Fassbender, Penélope Cruz, Cameron Diaz and Javier Bardem all beautiful people who seriously can do sexy. But still despite Cameron Diaz and Penélope Cruz giving us seriously sexy this movie keeps on shoving you away even when a revelation or moment of drama spikes your interest it then fails to build on it.
What this all boils down to is "The Counsellor" probably could have been a fascinating thriller but something went wrong and for one reason or another, and in truth it is a combination of issues, this movie never grabs the audience consistently to make it work. Instead it is a movie which once in a while will grab your attention but then lose it just as quickly.
