Movie Review: "The Counselor" (2013)

Movie: "The Counselor"
Director: Ridley Scott
Rating: R
Running Time: 1 hour, 57 minutes

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A criminal attorney (Michael Fassbender) who seems to be in need of quick money, gets involved in a drug deal with his business partner Reiner (Javier Bardem) and another friend named Westray (Brad Pitt). Something goes wrong during the process, and the cartel takes revenge out on them.

CRAPPY MOVIE IS CRAPPY.

This movie has over-complicated dialogue and an over-simplified plot. Some viewers may applaud its ambiguity, but we do not.

Things we know about this movie:
1) The Counselor is involved in a drug deal. We do not know how he is involved or what his role is in this drug deal, but he's involved somehow.
2) Something goes wrong regarding the drug deal and The Counselor and his friends get blamed. We don't know why they are blamed since we don't know their involvement, but they get blamed.
3) The drug deal is ultimately successful, but The Counselor and his friends are still in trouble. The only link between what went wrong and The Counselor is that he once bailed out a client's son for a speeding ticket he could not pay, and the son worked for the cartel and was killed.
4) We know The Counselor claims to need money, but we don't know why or how bad his money problems are, considering he's opening a club with Reiner and buying 3.9 carat rings for his fiancee.

It seems as though the more time that clicks by on the time-clock for this movie, the worse it gets. It just drags on, and on, and on, without ever getting anywhere.
This is what happens when a novelist pens a screenplay. What works on paper might not necessarily work coming out of people's mouths on screen, and that's what happens in this movie. The philosophical jargon that is spewed throughout this film is unnecessary and comes off as unnatural and humorous instead of serious and insightful.

And seriously, what's with all the gratuitous sexual references throughout the entire film? This movie just goes overboard with them. They seem unnecessary and don't further the plot at all. The are like side-notes in the film because it's not interesting enough as a whole without some sort of weird sex story thrown in the middle of a random encounter between The Counselor and Reiner. The movie alone is not enough to keep people interested, so the writers or directors felt the need to add a dozen or so sexual references sprinkled in like glistening turds throughout the film.

For a movie with such an historically strong director and such a hefty cast of fantastic actors (minus Cameron Diaz), we are sorely disappointed in this film.

PS: It never ceases to amaze us what makeup and hair artists can do to make Javier Bardem look absolutely batshit crazy by tweaking his hair just a little bit.

My Rating: 3/10
BigJ's Rating: 3.5/10
IMDB's Rating: 5.4/10
Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 36%
Do we recommend this movie: AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE!!!