It’s not every day that Cameron Diaz humps a Ferrari windshield. Well, wait a sec. I can’t say that for certain. How about – it’s not every day I see Cameron Diaz hump a Ferrari windshield. I can’t tell if The Counselor is an elaborate modern Greek tragedy or an indulgent, predictable and pathetic source of modern cynicism. I’m leaning towards the latter. Evidence? There are pet cheetahs in the film. We go from the bed chamber of new fiancées and pretty people Michael Fassbender and Penélope Cruz (Null set in the Perv Corner for this scene, btw. Awwwww.) to Javier Bardem and Cameron Diaz in the African Savannah. What’s that? Not the Savannah. This is El Paso, too? Huh. Why are there cheetahs?
Michael Fassbender gets called “Counselor” about a hundred times in this film. I don’t think he even has a name. There is true irony in the idea that for the most part, this counselor only receives advice and dishes almost none back. The advice he receives? Don’t do it. Everybody tells him not to, in vivid and colorful detail form, in philosophical conclusion form. Rhapsodic warnings galore. Even Westray (Brad Pitt) who stands to make a bundle invokes Mickey Rourke from Body Heat. Don’t do it. Don’t do it. Don’t do it. We don’t even know what he’s supposed to not do, but we know damn well he shouldn’t. This is the kind of film you have to piece together what’s going on as Ridley Scott is very vague in the storytelling. Hence, the Greek tragedy piece: The Counselor is told his future in horrible anecdote form. He has two options, but the one where doesn’t get involved in drug dealing and suffer the consequences probably doesn’t make a movie happen, either.
The drugs are smuggled in sealed oil drums in the depths of a raw sewage truck. This is a movie, so you watch the border inspector give a free pass without much more than a ugly nose pinch. That bothers me. What line of work would you be in where you would be importing raw sewage from Mexico? I mean, you’re not taking it on vacation. Clearly, it doesn’t get a round trip, so why? Why? 
Why is Mexican sewage to be dumped in the United States? This bothers me a great deal more than any immigrant issue. I’d have found those drugs just as soon as I got a receptacle big enough to contain the creamy middle of this particular Twinkie.
Oh, and there’s also a dead body in one of the barrels. Who is it? Dunno. Why? Dunno. This is simply how cartel enemies spend their afterlives. And there is The Counselor in one moment, one complex thought: Memorable, gruesome and irrelevant. It’s like somebody had a boring screenplay and a team of writers decided to spice it up with stuff they found on the internet. “But this doesn’t work … there’s absolutely no reason for Cameron Diaz to screw the hood of a Ferrari … and it doesn’t make sense … and Michael Fassbender seems repulsed when he hears about it … and then Javier Bardem just says, “Forget it,” to reinforce how important this moment isn’t…”
“Look, do you want to see Cameron Diaz screw a car or not?”
Despite the lesson in recreational motoring, Cameron Diaz does not have my vote for “Most Ridiculous Visual” on film this year. With a shirt at volume 11, tinted 70s shades and spiky hair, Javier Bardem looks like he would be more comfortable playing lead guitar alongside Dr. Teeth in the Electric Mayhem. For the second major film in a row, Javier makes something resembling a homosexual come-on with a macabre anecdote. That’s one Hell of a pigeonhole, amigo. Wait. Wait. What’s that? You, too, have a screenplay in which a man dressed for Halloween vaguely hints at homosexual relations with another man by describing an unpleasant way to die? I have *just* the actor.
Slickster talk
Bardem squak
Take the cheetahs for a walk
Wished-on star
Trouble far?
Diaz spreading on a car
Fassben-dear
Fate is near
All the pain as promised here
Rated R, 117 Minutes
D: Ridley Scott
W: Cormac McCarthy
Genre: Indulgent cautionary tale
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Philosophical drug lords
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: People who see action films so they don’t have to think.
