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The Counselor

2013

Ridley Scott

Michael Fassbender, Penélope Cruz, Cameron Diaz, Javier Bardem ...

4.7

12,566

Thriller A respected lawyer, the Counselor (Michael Fassbender), finds himself in way over his head when he agrees to a one-time dalliance into the dark world of drug trafficking in order to get his hands on quick cash so he can marry his girlfriend, Laura (Penélope Cruz). His choices get him involved with people such as a drug lord named Reiner (Javier Bardem); a womanizing middleman named Westray (Brad Pitt) and a bisexual sociopath named ... [+]

	Author	Review
United States	Todd McCarthy The Hollywood Reporter	"Despite its scaldingly hot cast and formidable writer/director combination, 'The Counselor' is simply not a very likable or gratifying film. In fact, it's a bummer."	NEG
United States	Mick LaSalle SFGATE	"It contains memorable dialogue, vivid characters and several superb scenes, and yet it still manages to be wrong, a complete miscalculation (...) Rating: ★ (out of 4)"	NEG
United States	Richard Roeper Chicago Sun-Times	"'The Counselor' achieves the almost unheard-of daily double of giving us the most outrageous sex scene of the year AND the most unforgettably brutal murder of the year. This is a badass journey from start to finish. (...) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 4)"	POS
United States	Mary F. Pols Time	"Emotionally vacant film (...) Plays like a parody of a Cormac McCarthy adaptation...It's derivative nonsense."	NEG
United States	Moira MacDonald Seattle Times	"Great cast, middling movie. (...) stylish but unfulfilling Ridley Scott film (...) Rating: ★★½ (out of four)"	NEU
United States	Ann Hornaday The Washington Post	"The Counselor" must have looked great on paper, but you can't believe a word of it (...) Rating: ★½ (out of 4)"	NEG
United States	Peter Travers Rolling Stone	"'The Counselor' [is] a droning meditation on capitalism in the form of a thriller about cocaine trading on the Tex-Mex border. (...) Rating: ★★ (out of 4)"	NEU
United States	Colin Covert Minneapolis Star Tribune	"Despite heaps of talent, this baffling drug-war drama is 'Scarface' meets 'Tree of Life,' and not in a good way. (...) Rating: ★ (out of 4)"	NEG
United States	Peter Debruge Variety	"Cormac McCarthy's first original script is nearly all dialogue, but it's a lousy story, ineptly constructed and rendered far too difficult to follow"	NEG
United States	Manohla Dargis The New York Times	"Mr. Scott's seriousness isn't always well served by the scripts he films, but in Mr. McCarthy he has found a partner with convictions about good and evil rather than canned formula."	POS
United States	Kenneth Turan Los Angeles Times	"As cold, precise and soulless as the diamonds that figure briefly in its plot, "The Counselor" is an extremely unpleasant piece of business. (...) Rating: ★½ (out of 5)"	NEG
United States	Joe Morgenstern The Wall Street Journal	"The cast is all but suffocated by the sententious dialogue of an airless drama"	NEG

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