Everyone's talking at him, but Michael Fassbender don't hear a word they're saying as the tragic title character in The Counselor. The first original screenplay by Cormac McCarthy, The Counselor's chief joke is the great lengths everyone goes to warn Fassbender's unnamed lawyer not to get involved in drug trafficking (then, to accept his fate once everything inevitably goes tits up). Cameron Diaz is Michelle Pfeiffer as a vamped up, omnisexual predator who consumes Javier Bardem's drug kingpin like a cyclone. Ridley Scott directs quietly, flushing the harsh landscapes with the absurdly garish wealth of those foolish enough to wander through. McCarthy is firmly in charge, cooking up disjointed conversations and befuddled ideologies around a skeletal narrative about life's entropic disasters. Not tidy (nor possessing the surface-level charm of No Country For Old Men) The Counselor's hyped expectations may leave audiences unfulfilled, but it's sheer refusal to pull the trigger makes it one of the best crime films in years.
