Much has been made about Ridley Scott’s “The Counselor.” Originally panned by critics in 2013, the film, which had a screenplay penned by the late Cormac McCarthy, has garnered a cult following over the years.
One person who is not a fan of the film, or McCarthy’s screenplay, is Pedro Almodóvar. In a recent interview with The Guardian, Almodóvar briefly veers off into the difference between writing novels and scripts. He points to McCarthy’s screenplay for “The Counselor.”
There’s a lot of examples of that but the one I’ll give you is Cormac McCarthy, who I like a lot. You’d think – or at least I’d think – that this guy would write a good film script because he’s very good at dialogue and his novels are based on dialogue. But he wrote a script, single-handed, called The Counsellor, which was directed by Ridley Scott and which had Penélope [Cruz] and Brad Pitt in it. It was really weak and the film didn’t work. They’re two different disciplines.
“The Counselor,” which revolved around a lawyer and a drug deal gone bad, was most famous for its scene of a scantily clad Cameron Diaz having sex with an expensive car. Suffice to say, the critical reception was terrible and its box-office was disastrous.
Its 35% Rotten Tomatoes score might turn you off, but some folks completely abide by this film, and critics like Glenn Kenny and Manhola Dargis have been defending it since its release. Ditto Guillermo del Toro who has stated that he loves “The Counselor” on a “molecular level,” adding that the film was “brilliant” and “underappreciated.”
More recently, Scott Tobias argued in favor of adding “The Counselor” to a “New Cult Canon.” The Guardian also called it a “great” and “misunderstood film. Now we have IndieWire’s Jim Hemphill saying that it’s “a masterpiece that improves with age.”
For the time being, I can’t say that I disagree with Almodóvar’s sentiments on this film. It’s a mess. Then again, I haven’t seen “The Counselor” since its release, more than 10 years ago.
From what I remember, it was a film whose tone caught me completely off guard. It was this near-plotless romp with graphic violence, sex and an overabundance of McCarthy's well known philosophical speak, except this time McCarthy’s words didn’t translate well from page to screen. Maybe it’s time for me to finally rewatch it tonight.