This movie is not a computer animated cartoon. It is not a sequel to anything. There are no superpowers, talking cars and planes, no action hero team-ups, and no Mike Tyson cameos. According to my friends who give a shit about such things, it's been treated like a burning bag of dog shit by the critics, and the theater was less than half full at 7pm on opening night, despite a fairly big name cast.
Basically, it's a simple "The Deal Goes Wrong" movie. My take on it: Ridley Scott does his best Michael Mann. Or "No Country For Early Middle Age Men". If that sounds appealing to you, it comes with my recommendation. Penelope Cruz gets eaten out in the first five minutes, so you know this is going to be a film that straddles the line between payoff and too much. But to me, it was 90% payoff. Brad Pitt and Cammy Diaz have some difficulty wrapping themselves around the dialogue, but I thought Javier Bardim was awesome in a kind of Mickey Rourke/Robert Downey Jr. goofball manner. Michael Fussbudget/Fassbinder/Fassbender did the emotional stuff well, and there were a couple good cameos and small roles that were utilized perfectly.
You can see where it's going, but it was a lot of fun watching it get there. The violence was sparing, but very brutal. It's depressing, but no more so than "Traffic" or "Heat". It had that aura of doom that was grandiose but not overwhelming. Some of the monologues on life, death, power and women were so good I'd go back and see it again just for those scenes. And there are very few movies these days that I have any desire to see again. For fuck's sake, last week I saw "Escape Plan" with Sly and Arnold. It was fun, but "The Counselor" is not disposable nonsense like that. It's a real movie. They still make them, if anybody cares.
_________________ "5 feet away look up to a 9 footer with shoulders as wide as your dashboard and see if you care how progressives are telling you how to think." -Dong, on bigfoot and politics.
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