The Counselor Movie Review

This movie is not popular with the critics at the moment, but I thought I would watch it myself and draw my own conclusions...

The Counselor is directed by Ridley Scott (Gladiator, Prometheus) and stars Michael Fassbender in the lead role, along with other world-famous actors such as Cameron Diaz, Penelope Cruz, Brad Pitt and Javier Bardem. Admitttedly The Counselor can say that it has an exceptional cast of actors at it's disposal. Ridley Scott movies are either hits or real misses.

Unfortunately, The Counselor misses.

It is one of the worst movies I have seen all year for many reasons. However, I did take away a few minute positives from it.

Firstly, I must commend the guts of the director for making this film in such a unique way. Also, I thought that, despite the material they had in front of them, Michael Fassbender, Javier Bardem and Brad Pitt all gave good performances. Honestly, they tried hard to redeem this movie..

However the underlying issue with this movie is absolutely huge in that the screenplay is a complete f***ing mess!

The script is dull and uninteresting and at times when characters were talking I felt like falling asleep because I really couldn't get interested. Honestly, I tried! In movies, you should be completely riveted by a conversation between 2 characters but The Counselor does not offer you that. It is just a string of irrelevant and poorly written dialogue that sends you to sleep..

The film's editing is a mess and some of the story elements really don't make much sense. I just didn't get behind The Counselor's style unfortunately and that makes me sad because I really wanted to like this movie.

The plot is poorly told in my opinion, it could have been handled so much better if in the hands of better writers and better directors. At times, the movie tries to be gory and violent but those scenes come out at you without much notice, they feel unnatural compared to the rest of the movie.

At other times, the story becomes really weird. There is one scene which involves Cameron Diaz dry-humping a car! Was I supposed to laugh? I didn't laugh. It was the biggest "wtf" moment of any film I have seen this year.

As for Cameron Diaz, I feel sorry for her. The dialogue is written poorly and she solidifies that fact by delivering the lines with no real heart or conviction. It felt unnatural. Plus, practically every line she says is audio-dubbed which is even more distracting.

In all honesty, The Counselor is an odd movie that is unfortunately boring and uninteresting. The performances do save it slightly but they are over-shadowed by a screenplay which is literally all over the place..

I don't like giving movies low ratings but I must give my honest opinion:


Rating - D+


1 sentence summary - A poorly written movie that comes across as dull and uninteresting!


Can't recommend you seeing this one. Wasn't a fan...

Thanks for reading,
Matt