The Counselor: Guilty as charged

The Counselor (2013) • View trailer 
No stars (turkey). Rating: R, for graphic violence, grisly images, profanity and strong sexual content
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.25.13

Cormac McCarthy apparently felt that 2009’s big-screen adaptation of his novel The Road wasn’t sufficiently bleak, violent or morally depraved, so he upped his game with the original screenplay for this glossy bit of rubbish.

Despite repeated, protracted and viciously descriptive warnings from Westray (Brad Pitt,
left), our imbecilic title character (Michael Fassbender) stubbornly insists on getting
involved with a massive shipment of illegal drugs. After all, what could go wrong?

Rarely have so many A-list stars been involved in such a lamentable waste of time.

The Counselor isn’t merely set in a world of abominable behavior; McCarthy’s characters are cheerfully pragmatic about it. No act too vile to contemplate? They don’t merely contemplate; they discuss barbarism with the thoughtful ease of two fellows comparing cigar brands in a gentlemen’s club. Then, having laboriously exhausted the subject, director Ridley Scott ensures that we’ll eventually get to watch each degenerate act.

McCarthy has a Pulitzer Prize to his credit, for the aforementioned The Road, and rumor suggests that he’s under consideration for a Nobel Prize for literature. The characters in his novels often struggle with moral ambiguity in an increasingly cynical world, although we’re generally able to sympathize with a well-meaning protagonist, whether John Grady Cole in All the Pretty Horses, or Sheriff Ed Tom Bell in the grimmer No Country for Old Men (adapted into a sensational 2007 film by Joel and Ethan Coen).

But there’s nobody to like in The Counselor; indeed, it’s difficult to even understand most of the characters who populate this deadly dull study of ill-advised acts and their horrible consequences. Everybody is morally compromised at best, or sociopathic, or indifferently brutal. Everybody except the token innocent, that is, who may as well be wearing a sign that reads “Sacrificial Lamb.”

Mind you, a roster of degenerates isn’t necessarily bad in and of itself; Quentin Tarantino has a way of extracting wonderfully dark entertainment from the vicious swine who inhabit, say, Pulp Fiction or Inglourious Basterds. But that’s precisely the point: Tarantino characters are engaging for the way they revel in their bad behavior, whereas the increasingly tiresome players in this drama give new meaning to the word “boring.”

Beginners: Poignant to the end

Beginners (2010) • View trailer for Beginners
Four stars. Rating: R, and rather harshly, for mild sensuality and occasional bursts of profanity
By Derrick Bang


Chronic grief is difficult to convey on camera.

It’s not chest-beating and wails of anguish; that may be a credible snap response to a tragedy, but it’s the stuff of extended sorrow only in afternoon soap operas and bad melodramas.

Oliver (Ewan McGregor), not quite certain whether to trust that his budding
relationship with Anna (Mélanie Laurent) will last, attempts to keep her
off-guard with unexpected gestures. But being spontaneous doesn't come
easily to Oliver; it's one of many things he needs to learn while navigating
several unexpected and life-changing events.

Long-term misery is more like a lamp on a dimmer switch; the entire bulb is present, but the inner glow is diminished. One’s aura is muted. Answers to questions are half a heartbeat late; physical movement is sluggish; the eyes never quite focus; smiles seem to appear more because they’re expected — a social convention, to mask the truth — as opposed to reflecting spontaneous delight. One simply doesn’t look or seem involved.

All this is hard to project in a film, precisely because it isn't flashy. Lesser actors try too hard, and miss the desired result entirely.

Meryl Streep caught it, in 1982’s adaptation of Sophie’s Choice. Richard Jenkins did just as well, more recently, in The Visitor. Both earned well-deserved Academy Award nominations for their efforts; Streep won hers.

Ewan McGregor belongs in their company, for his rich, quietly layered and subtly precise work in writer/director Mike Mills’ Beginners. This is a compelling, persuasively nuanced study of personal pain and the cautious attempts at recovery. Mills clearly understands the process, and his story resonates with the utter truth of personal experience. He really nails the process: It’s like learning to exist all over again, and figuring out how to re-assemble the pieces of one’s psyche, because a large chunk has been removed. Permanently.

But navigating grief is only half the equation here; the rest derives from the shock of confronting change so massive that it disrupts one’s sense of the universe ... and, to a great degree, of self.

The time is 2003; we meet Oliver (McGregor) as he embraces the ritual of sifting through another’s possessions — the books, clothes, furniture and boxed clutter that somehow shape an entire life — after having just lost his father to cancer. It’s a doleful process, made even worse by the occasional discovery that prompts an involuntary smile. Oliver shares this experience with Arthur, an expressive Jack Russell Terrier that was his father’s constant companion. Now, with his former master absent, Arthur cannot leave Oliver’s side.

This dog, it must be mentioned, is a treasure: one of the great screen canines, giving a performance every bit the equal of his two-legged co-stars. Actually named Cosmo, this pooch was trained by Mathilde de Cagny, who nurtured another famous Jack Russell — Moose, who played Eddie — during 11 seasons of the TV series Frasier.