The Counselor – Directed by Ridley Scott

This film screams smash hit with stars like Pitt & Fassbender alongside Penelope Cruz, Cameron Diaz and Javier Bardem.

They all perform wonderfully.

The film looks amazing. The styling and direction are first class.

It wants to be great, but the script – the first original film screenplay by Cormack McCarthy who wrote the original novels that became the films “The Road” and “No Country for Old Men”, the latter earning four Academy Awards including best director and best picture and best supporting actor for Javier Bardam.

Tellingly the film adaptation of Cormack McCarthy’s The Road was not nominated for any Oscars and was generally a bleak film.

The Counselor has been met with very mixed reviews and to be honest I think it’s just a very unconventional film. As a 40-year-old suburban Australian man – maybe I’m too conventional for this film. I like Thor, and sci- fi and some zombies and thrills and spills. And comedies.

This movie has very little of any of those things.

It has impossible good-looking wealthy people being tools.

As in No Country for Old Men the story starts with a botched rug deal and it gradually gets heavier and murkier and more unpleasant and with no characters I found likeable there’s very little caring for what goes on.

This is a movie I would like to see again on DVD to try and understand whether it is actually genius and I just missed it in all the abstract stuff, or if it really is one of the worst films of the year.

I feel terrible panning a film because I know all the people associated with the movie work hard and are good souls. I also like to go to the movies to be entertained, inspired, uplifted, have my hearth thrilled, and maybe warmed and go away thinking about the story in a movie.

This one sadly I could not forget fast enough.

2 stars.