THE COUNSELLOR
US, 2013, 117 minutes, Colour,
Michael Fassbender, Penelope Cruz, Janvier Bud Dern, Brad Pitt, Cameron Diaz, Ruben Blades, Goran Visnick, Dean Norris, Edgar Ramirez, Natalie Dormer, Bruno Ganz, John Leguizamo.
Directed by Ridley Scott.
Divided opinions on this one. Those who are interested in the novels and films of Cormac Mc Carthy have shown interest in it. However, many have been very disappointed by the convoluted plot as well as the time taken out from action for elaborate monologues, the kind of dialogue that nobody uses in real life, plus, at times, a specialised vocabulary.
The film is quite unpleasant in its way, with characters who are in no way sympathetic, even though the screenplay seems to be asking for the audience to have an interest in and warm to the central character, The Counsellor (never given a specific name), played by Michael Fassbender, who worked with Ridley Scott in Prometheus. He plays a lawyer who for greedy motivations, to give his wife a comfortable way of living, becomes involved in drug trafficking from Juarez, Mexico, and becomes mixed up with a number of wealthy criminals as well as many of those who usually described as low-lives.
The film is something of a fable, especially on the gospel theme of “what does it profit a man…?”. We soon realise that this is going to be true of the counsellor himself. However, another character does gain the whole world, but by the end of the film we are wondering whether this character ever had a soul to lose in the first place.
Michael Fassbender plays his role in a rather subdued way, although he has to express desperation by the end of the film and sadness at the fate of his wife. She is played by Penelope Cruz with a touch of glamour and a touch of shrewdness. There is a strange couple played by Javier Bardem and Cameron Diaz, he unashamed about his greed, his ambitions for building a club, with something of a carefree attitude towards life and issues until he has to meet them face-to-face; she is all glamour, a blonde femme fatale, unscrupulous in her dealings, manipulative. There is also Brad Pitt, seemingly a middle-man in the drug trade. He manages to have quite a spectacular exit scene.
While a lot of the convolutions of the plot are just presented rather than explained, especially the counsellor’s involvement, if we pay attention, it all works out in the end. And, there are all those monologues about the meaning of life, the meaning of greed, the nature of the world we live in, the choices which we make which create a world different from the one we are living in… They are spoken by quite a number of the characters, especially the main characters, but also a barman, a lawyer, the head of the cartels.
Some have accused Cormac Mc Carthy of a kind of misogyny. However, he is very interested in sex and its different and sometimes extreme variations. Some of the sequences, especially the opening sequence, highlights the sexuality and continues to give a tone to the film, more than especially a scene involving Cameron Diaz in the car as well as her wanting to confess to a priest who is quite disturbed by her approach. At age 80, Mc Carthy, along with director, Ridley Scott who is 77, they could be called dirty old men.
After this exploration of crime, sin and the wages of sin, Ridley Scott is directing a film version of the book of Exodus. (Though there is a lot of sin and wages of sin in that book as well!)
1. Audience interest in the film? The cartels? Drugs? Lawyers? Crime?
2. The town of Juarez, the contrast with El Paso, scenes of the desert, cities and their affluence? The finale in London? The musical score?
3. An unpleasant film, unpleasant characters, difficult to identify with? The situations, greed and betrayal, brutality environments? Desperation and despair?
4. The work of Cormac Mc Carthy, the film versions, a grim perspective on life? The work of Ridley Scott, the great range of genres he worked in?
5. The dialogue, the number of monologues, holding up the action or illustrating it? And the camera’s attention to small details, like pouring a cup of coffee, while the characters speak the monologues? The philosophy of life and its motivations, choices, the creation of a world, fate? Are spoken by Reiner, Westray, the Jese, the barman, Malkina?
6. The plot, clarity, characters, intersections, motivations?
7. The basic situation, the smuggling of drugs, the deals, the people involved, the profit motive, the nature of smuggling, spying on others, manipulating, arranging killings? The buyers? The dealers?
8. The opening, the sexual encounter and its detail, the touch of prurience, the audience eavesdropping and watching? Setting a tone, the discussions about sexuality, especially with Reiner, with Malkina, the confession sequence, the priest uncomfortable, Malkina and her casual approach, wanting to talk, perhaps boast, to someone, the priest leaving the confessional? The scene with Malkina and the car, as spoken about by Reiner, as visualised, and the counsellor asking why he was being told this story?
9. The counsellor, going into action, the discussions with Reiner, visiting the club, the plans, the encounters with Malkina? His love for his wife? The encounters with Westray? Things going wrong, his becoming more and more bewildered, the phone calls, to Westray, to his wife, the deaths, the plan to go to Boise? At the airport, the abduction of his wife, waiting in the hotel, visiting the lawyer for advice, drunk in the bar, the advice of the bartender, the phone call to the Jese, the final scenes of weeping in desperation?
10. The wife, in love with her husband, a strong character, the encounter with the young client at the hotel, her being puzzled, concerned for her husband, planning to go to Boise, going to the airport, her being abducted? The scene with the corpse in the rubbish tip?
11. The visit to Ruth in prison, his work for her, her son and the connections? Ruth sensing her son was dead?
12. Westray, his connections, warnings, the discussions with the counsellor, the phone calls, warning him, the conversation about coincidences, about his wife? Going to London, his vanity, the girl at the counter, his walking in the street, the joggers, the garrotte, his lying on the footpath, bleeding?
13. Malkina, sexy, her relationship with Reiner, listening into his discussions with the counsellor, ordering the decapitation, the characters who did her will, cold and calculating, measuring the height of the bike? Setting up the wire? The lights, watching? Retrieving the connection to the truck? The truck being held up, the false police, the shootings? Deaths in the truck taken by the cartels? Malkina’s continually giving orders, going to London, ordering the death of Westray, retrieving the computer, the girl giving the password, the discarding of her and the girl giving back the money? The final meeting with the banker and the warnings?
14. The cartels, the range of killers, the drivers, the decapitation, the shootings, the bystander driving the truck in the desert and his death, the waste disposal, the range of workers, cleaners, the scene in Chicago, the buyer, the explanation of the bodies in the drums?
15. An immersion in an unpleasant experience, with unpleasant characters, and the moral “what does it profit a man…?”.
