{"id":15614,"date":"2013-11-15T15:19:55","date_gmt":"2013-11-15T15:19:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/?p=15614"},"modified":"2013-11-15T15:21:08","modified_gmt":"2013-11-15T15:21:08","slug":"the-counsellor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/2013\/11\/15\/the-counsellor\/","title":{"rendered":"The Counsellor"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Javier<\/a><\/p>\n

The screenwriting debut of novelist Cormac McCarthy<\/a> sees him team up with director Ridley Scott<\/a> for a bleak tale set amidst the drug trade of the US-Mexican border region.<\/p>\n

When a shady lawyer (Michael Fassbender) gets caught up in a transaction gone wrong, he starts to fully realise that his world may be a cesspit of corruption of murder, endangering not only him but his fiancee (Penelope Cruz).<\/p>\n

Employed by a flamboyant Mexican dealer (Javier Bardem), who has a strangely sinister girlfriend (Cameron Diaz), he is warned by a business associate named Westray (Brad Pitt) that Mexican cartels can be ruthless and unforgiving when crossed.<\/p>\n

Although an original screenplay, we are firmly in ‘McCarthy-land’, where human suffering is seemingly around every corner and harsh punishment is meted out in remorseless ways.<\/p>\n

Ridley Scott has long been interested in bringing the novelist\u2019s Blood Meridian<\/a> to the screen and he\u2019s admitted that when the option to make this film came up, he jumped at the chance.<\/p>\n

The result is a dark and strange film, defiantly going against the grain of conventional studio filmmaking, with its sordid scenes of sex and violence marking it out as a rarity in the current climate of animation and safety-first blockbusters.<\/p>\n