The
Counselor
(2013)
(SPOILERS) Just
as I’d concluded Ridley Scott was content to churn out mechanical, technically
proficient but empty movies for the rest of his career (which, given his
current productivity, wont be over until he’s 115) he starts to become
interesting again. I know it’s taken furious beatings from all and sundry, but
I actually liked Prometheus. A ropey
script but a superlative piece of filmmaking. And now comes The Counselor, dribbling Cormac McCarthy’s
hot ink, a movie that few appear to hold in esteem. It’s certainly a bit of a
mess, frequently closer to a grab bag of disconnected scenes than a cohesive story,
and displays a penchant for rambling indulgent monologues and tale telling that
verges on parody. But I’m at a loss as to why so much bile has been heaved over it. This is dark, brooding,
unwholesome material and, for all its shortcomings, The Counselor represents Scott at his most engaged and interesting.
McCarthy was
surely scoffing at any presumptions the viewer might have of a tale with a strong
narrative grip. He seems, and Scott – screenplay selection was clearly never
his forte – appears content to indulge him without comment, more caught up in
the delights of any given exchange than ensuring the overarching whole comes to
life. And so it’s a movie of great scenes, weird scenes, apparently irrelevant
scenes and occasionally just plain crappy scenes. We’re probably spoiled in
having one peerless McCarthy adaptation, No
Country for Old Men, as it forms a yardstick against which all others are
measured and inevitably come up short. The Coens are the Coens, and they ensure
plot is comes foremost, for all the willful idiosyncrasies that may lie within
(the fate of No Country’s nominal
hero, for example). In some respects it’s sort of admirable that McCarthy, and
a deferential Scott, is so willing not to give a damn about expectations, to
just go with whatever he feels pulled towards in any given moment.
At times a
seemingly random discourse lays the seed for later pay-offs, just because you
know no writer could the resist the lure of the set up. But, when this occurs
more than a couple of times, the device ends up looking clumsy, no matter how
engaging a given conversation between Michael Fassbender’s Counselor (a lawyer
who wants to get involved in cocaine trafficking) and Javier Bardem’s Reiner (a
razzle-dazzle, livewire trafficker) may be. Perhaps there is indeed a purposefully
twisted provocation behind the Counselor’s repeated and uncomprehending
responses to any given yarn during any given encounter (and he is told a fair
few, to the extent that McCarthy either sees this as some kind of meta-thing or
he has no control over his weaker authorial impulses). That feeble refrain of, “Why are you telling me this?” is heard
at intervals throughout. In the cases of Reiner’s explanation of a bolita and
Brad Pitt’s Westray’s account of snuff movie justice, this serves to introduce the
unmetered practices of the cartel (don’t cross them). Likewise, pretty much any
discussion of anyone holds up a flashing
“Warning” sign, announcing that at some later point this very factor will be
present in their downfall (male characters’ weakness for women, for example, or
the repeated suggestion that Cameron Diaz’ Malkina – whom the Counselor barely
meets but who is key to the loss of all that he holds dear – is unknowable and
someone to be feared).
That
Fassbender’s Counselor is never referred to by any other name is surely intended
as starkest irony rather than an existential statement. This isn’t a figure
stripped to his barest iconographic essentials (such as Ryan O’Neal and Bruce
Dern’s characters in The Driver).
This is a lawyer, a counselor, who finds himself in perpetual need of counsel
from others. And whose advice he invariably ignores. There’s another problem in
this, a result of the movie’s overt posturing; for all its plays on
philosophical discourse and verbose poetics the script is wholly short on substance.
The drug trade will be the death of you; it’s a fool’s game. And take
responsibility for your choices, because there are no second chances. As Ruben
Blades’ cartel boss instructs the Counselor, during a monologue so ripe it
teeters into self-parody; “You are the
world you have created, and when you cease to exist, that world you have
created will cease to exist”. McCarthy is fantastic at dressing his world
in a natty suit, an area where Scott is also no slouch. But Blades ends up coming
across as the most pompous windbag this side of The Matrix Reloaded’s Architect. All that’s needed is for Will
Ferrell to spoof him. Part of me thinks this must be intentional, since the
pathetic sight of Fassbender blubbing away in his car as Blades drones on begs derision.
When Blades calls off with “If I have
time I think I’ll take a small nap” it elicits almost bathetic mirth. Yet
if The Counselor is an intentional
joke it’s a slender one, all elaborate build up but lacking a strong punch
line.
Fassbender
gives a good performance. He always does. But his character is a (intentional?)
vacuum at the core of Scott’s movie, a cypher. The Counselor’s blithe lack of
realisation of what he is doing and the effects it will have, a dissonance
between being told something is the case and actually experiencing it
firsthand, is to illustrate the lesson that “you continue to deny the reality of the world you are in”. But it’s
a fairly obvious teaching and, because Fassbender is such a chump, it’s
difficult to engage in his plight; even on a level of the Counselor’s narrative
descent, McCarthy has gone out of his way to stuff-up his pudding.
A
succession of scenes highlight that the lead character is about to get in way
over his head. First Reiner warns him off (in earlier, wiser times the
Counselor turned down an offer), then Westray (“If you’re not in, you need to tell me”), and each time the
Counselor reassures, “No, I’m all right”.
He reeks of a lack of conviction. He indicates his current course is because
his “back’s against the wall” but
it’s uncertain if this is really the case or he has chosen to make it so. This
is a man investing in a club and buying his girlfriend 3.8-carat diamonds. The
Counselor wants to be a player, despite the wise warnings from those who have
seen the downside of such a life and (so far) lived to tell. As Blades’
character suggests (there are some golden nuggets in his speech, but it has to
be sifted through, and the urge to nod off actively fought): “I don’t mean to offend you, but reflective
men often find themselves at a place where they are removed from the reality of
life”.
As a
result, the Counselor plays fast and loose with the safety of his dearest,
Laura (Penélope Cruz). And yet we wonder about
this. If the thin imprint of the Counselor is a purposeful one on the part of
McCarthy, barely a whisper in the room while others make their present felt in
the most emphatic and expressive manner, is the tepid romance with Laura likewise
intentional? I’m unsure. It seems peculiar to devote so much time to a relationship
that has no impact, and a couple you really don’t care for. Scott stages pretty
but dull trysts between them, and McCarthy offers dirty talk that fails to
crackle or combust. But he also leaves so many spaces for the audience to fill
in (something that is commendable, just so long as the author has sufficiently
plugged those holes in his own head). It’s entirely possible he is wagging a
finger at the empty-headed materialistic dream these two pursue, oblivious to
the consequences until it is too late. The Counselor overtly so, Laura by
association (it is unclear how much she knows but evidently it is enough).
Laura’s scene with Malkina, as the latter listens and belittles Laura’s
Catholicism (“What a world”) suggests
someone who doesn’t know what she thinks or feels, isn’t truly alive and
conscious (unlike Malkina; for all her vituperative cunning she is fully
present). She lives in a bubble, until it is rudely burst and she ends up in a
landfill (one presumes her other half is soon to follow).
It’s a failing
though, this kind of heavy-handed signposting. There’s a lovely, slowly
unspooling scene near the beginning in which the Counselor visits Bruno Ganz’s
dealer to buy a diamond. Scott exults in the detail of the rock, its inspection
and the conversation as it pores over the science of the perfect gem. Much of
the dialogue focuses on the properties of the “cautionary” stone; a couple of
scenes later, the oblivious title character queries the “cautionary nature” of a conversation with Westray, who offers an
overt evocation of Body Heat’s plea
from Mickey Rourke to William Hurt not to go through with murder; “Don’t do it, Counselor”. This sort of
writing isn’t even restrained enough to be called on-the-nose; it’s laid out on
the page with great neon arrows a-pointing.
The
thematic clarity contrasts with the frequently opaque plotting. Malkina is
established fairly early on as the brains behind everything that goes wrong for
everyone else, although the ins-and-outs of how she effects this are at times
obscure. Presumably it’s enough to know she has ruddy great cheetah tattoos across
her back, repeatedly states how hungry she is and maintains a fearless repose
(“Nothing is crueler than a coward”).
McCarthy offers no restraint in emphasising her callousness (“I think the truth has no temperature”
she replies to Reiner’s suggestion she is a bit on the cold side) and to her
credit Diaz fully embraces Malkina’s cartoonish villainy. I’ve seen many and
assorted criticisms of Diaz’ performance, but I think she’s the perfect fit,
relishing the character’s undiluted psychopathy. She’s also a fine complement
to Bardem’s crazy-haired, tinted shades abandon. There is clearly intended to
be a contrast between their respective excesses and the reserve (but lack of
corresponding awareness) of the nominal protagonists. Malkina’s ultimate plan may
be on the convoluted side, since she relies on numerous unknowables to reach
Westray’s accounts, but she is carried by couple of convincingly barnstorming
scenes along the way. We don’t doubt she can do what she does.
The most
celebrated (so to speak) is a flashback where Reiner recounts, apropos nothing
in particular, Malkina fucking his car (“Mostly
I was just fucking stunned”). It’s about as broad as The Counselor gets, and it’s not often that Scott tickles his funny
bone (A Good Year doesn’t count, or
shouldn’t) which makes this the more refreshing. Earlier Malkina visits
confession, laying her jaundiced perspective before an outraged priest. The
message is clear; she has nothing to hold her in check, which makes her
powerful. As Reiner says, “She scares the
shit out of me”. She also provides
the priest with a snippet of unnecessarily garish backstory (she saw her
parents thrown from a helicopter when she was three), since it’s enough to know
that she is an untamable and ferocious force of nature; there’s no need to
explain her motives. Westray, who operates as the voice of lapsed wisdom (he
knows better, but it doesn’t prevent him from tripping himself up), warns of
Malkina “Because you don’t know someone
until you know what they want”, a comment that finds a comfortable home
with a great many pronouncements in McCarthy’s script that border on the
platitudinous. Yet they fit this world of self-glorified operators, whose
ephemeral world needs to be cloaked in a veneer of confidence and
comprehension.
The lack of
attention McCarthy has paid to his plot is evident in some of the unlikely
devices he picks up along the way. How
feasible is it that a sewage truck will be travelling back and forth between
Mexico and the States? I mean, I could see the US evacuating itself in Mexico,
but vice versa? Thus, as a means of drug trafficking it’s probably the most
obvious possible vehicle to search.
Likewise,
the elaborate means of securing The Green Hornet’s key for said sewage truck
doesn’t bear much scrutiny. How many hours is the wireman (Sam Spruell) sitting
by the side of the road, his lethal trap stretched across it, without any other
vehicle chancing by? It makes for a great scene, admittedly, and Scott also
delivers later with a high-octane shoot-out between the purloiners of the truck
and the pursuing cartel, but likelihood doesn’t factor highly. These are untypical suspenseful sequences. Elsewhere, you'd be forgiven for thinking McCarthy and Scott consider such narratives beneath them. It’s also
unclear just how Natalie Dormer secures Westray’s password for his bank account
through sleeping with him. Who would leave a word/code lying around to be
found, particularly when most people find them terribly easy to memorise?
Nevertheless,
The Counselor rarely fails to engage.
Much of that is down to Scott’s dexterity, but the difference this time out is,
both the malicious sense of humour and the (mostly) bright and memorable
characters and dialogue. When was the last time he had them in his arsenal? And
no, (again) I’m not counting A Good Year.
This is his first teaming with Pitt since the movie that made the actor, Thelma & Louise, and it’s the kind
of part at which he excels; the illusion of surety. He’s a perfect mouthpiece
for McCarthy’s dialogue, knowing not to embrace too emphatically its heightened
flourishes. Westray is the closest the movie gets to a sympathetic character,
aware of his foibles (“I should have
jumped ship a long time ago”) but without the strength of character to
avoid them (“I’m going to go find a nice
quiet place and sit down and think about this” he promises the Counselor,
before jumping into bed with the first girl he sees in London; who just happens
to be Malkina’s asset). Which makes Westray’s demise particularly unpleasant.
McCarthy leaves much to the imagination, but presumably this one was too good
to resist; the bolito makes its mark to appallingly grizzly effect. Westray,
powerless to defend himself, is left shouting “Fuck you!” to his unseen attacker until speech is no longer
possible.
Bardem is having a lot of fun, pretty much the picture’s comic relief, playing a character who ultimately has no more
commonsense than the Counselor. His
demise is one part mishap, and leaves the Counselor in rarified territory (“The new definition of a friend is someone
who will die for you. And you don’t have any friends”). There are a number
of brief appearances from actors once used to meatier roles. Perhaps it was the
Ridley/Cormac factor that attracted them. Rosie “Bobo” Perez isn’t on screen
long enough to grate. Goran Visnjic and an uncredited John Leguizamo are one
scene deals too, as is Breaking Bad’s
Dean Norris this time on the other side of the law. And Toby Kebbell, who
really deserves larger and better roles, rules a scene opposite Fassbender as a
former client.
Scott is no
stranger to crime movies, but they’ve tended to be more linear and less
interesting than those of his brother Tony (who died while this was in
production). Ridley’s working with Daruisz Wolski as his DP, who also lensed Prometheus, so this looks expectedly
gorgeous, and the fetid atmosphere suits the director far more than prefab
productions like Black Rain or American Gangster. It’s a shame he’s
back in so-so epic territory for Exodus:
Gods and Kings next, as it’s difficult to conceive of anything exciting or
different being done with the Biblical tale. Special praise is deserved for
Daniel Pemberton’s wonderful score. Prometheus’
music, by Marc Streitenfeld, was sorely disappointing, even sapping the energy
from the picture at points, so it’s a pleasure to note Pemberton adds
immeasurably to the picture’s overall mood and texture; this is by turns
subtle, exotic and paranoid. I haven’t seen the extended cut, although I have
the impression the weight of opinion considers it inferior. Scott has
occasionally improved things with a different version (Kingdom of Heaven, although that picture is unsalvageably crippled
by its lead actor) but with others has just engaged in unnecessary tinkering (Alien).
Ridley Scott
can stand to make the odd failure (he's had long enough runs of duds pre-2000s), particularly as this one came in unusually
cheap (so much so, it may even turn a
profit despite its critical lambasting and the general public’s indifference).
I’d hope he continues to use this late career period to make interesting movies
rather than rote projects, or at least alternates between the two. One couldn’t
call The Counselor a success but it’s
an alluring misstep, one with much that sparkles amid the muck. It also
suggests a director easily capable of reinvigoration, given the right material.
Given Scott is now in his mid-70s, this is something to celebrate.
***1/2