The story: A lawyer known only as "The Counselor" (Fessbender)gets involved in a drug deal with aruthless Mexican cartel, but when it goes bad the cartel come after him and everyone he loves.
Was it good?
No. Why? Because it was SOOOO BOOORING. The entire first half of the movie is setting up The Counselor getting involved with the drug deal and it going wrong. For the most part, it's just people sitting around talking in a strange, clipped way that I think is supposed to make them sound deep. Maybe there's supposed to be a feeling of suspense, but it isn't there. Also not there is motive. No one seems to have a need for the money. It's like all this is just a thing to do. Also lacking is any real sense to the way The Counselor gets blamed for the deal going wrong. It's just a strange coincidence. Now coincidences happen and it can be okay for movies to turn on them, but you usually want them in the first quarter of the movie, not the second half. From there, there's a feeling of inevitability as the cartel and other close in on The Counselor. Now in all fairness, McCarthy's novels are incredibly praised in large part for the sort of "deep" sparceness he used in this film. It just didn't work for me at all here. It lacked tension, it lacked depth, it lacked emotion. And the thing with Cameron Diaz uses the car windshield to masturbate herself was just dumb.
*** AVOID ***
See instead: GONE BABY GONE (Ben Affleck's directoral debut), EL MARIACHI (Robert Rodruigez's first feature length film), or RUN LOLA RUN.
I did not think it was as bad you stated, but good review.
ReplyDelete