This film confirms a long-standing suspicion of mine that a “Cormac” is in fact the metric by which bleakness and the narrative representation of evil is measured. Cormac McCarthy’s script sparkles with philosophical rumination and psychological observation while weaving a tragic path through the world of drug-smuggling and its associated terrors.
The film is finely crafted and Ridley Scott does not drop the ball in his inevitably artisan directorial duties.
The tedium in the script appears to be a necessary element in that many of the characters in the film are merely mouthpieces for Cormac McCarthy’s brilliant, brutal and unutterably unfulfilling perspective on life, death and human experience. This tends to make some of the dialogue appear slightly pompous, if fascinating. The Counselor (who for all his cleverness seems to be caught unwittingly, aimlessly and intellectually stultified like a stray feather in a strong wind) appears to be a fool around whom all the drama orbits and around whom all the witty aphorisms and artistic affectations dance as though in some Día de Muertos festival.
It’s a very good film, if perhaps slow in places (due to the inevitable effervescence of philosophical revelations almost perpetually spouting forth from so many of the characters). Worth seeing; expect to be entertained but don’t expect to feel any better about yourself or about humanity for having witnessed this slow-motion tragedy.
I give it 4 and a half Cormacs (or should that be flawed diamonds ?) out of 5. Very good. Just tragic.
#RidleyScott
#TheCounsellor
#CormacMcCarthy
Daedelus Kite 