The Counsellor

I will start this review by saying that this is quite simply one of the most uncomfortable and unsettling film I have ever seen, taking its place alongside Oldboy and Blue Velvet. Like those films, it has moments of brutal violence carried out by people completely aware of what they are doing. Violence however, is simply the tip of the iceberg with The Counsellor. This film is an eighteen for a reason.

Written by one of the greatest living novelists, Cormac McCarthy and directed one of the best directors working today, Ridley Scott. The Counsellor follows an American counsellor as he gets involved in a drug deal, hoping to make a lot of money in a one time deal. I’ll avoid spoilers, but as you can imagine, his best laid plans soon unravel.

Where else to start with than the writing and the screenplay. You are dropped right into the middle of this world of drug dealers, corrupt middle men and assassins. There is little to no set up of the main story or its central characters. You are told to keep up and forced through this relentless terrifying descent into genuine horror.

The dialogue is beautiful throughout, although it does depend on the actor to see just how good it is, and  it is unlike anything you are likely to hear in a film this year. The monologues, which there are a few of, can be distracting and slow down the film at times, purely because they force you to really listen to words and understand the gravity and emotion behind each of them. One phone call is particularly hard to sit through, solely because of the actions and consequences which have led to this moment and the event to follow.

The plot is relatively simple to follow, but because we don’t come in at the start, you have to put together the pieces as the clues are drip fed to you. Although it’s nice to not be swamped with exposition, I can’t help but think that a few lines here and there would have gone a long way to making this more accessible.

The cast for this film is impressive, to say the least. Led by the stellar Michael Fassbender, whose arrogant law man starts off with the world at his feet and feeling untouchable before the inevitable and subtly delivered fall starts. Fassbender handles the unique dialogue well, giving the elaborate sentences and monologues a human feel, bringing substance to the style.

Brad Pitt and Javier Bardem fill out the supporting male roles. As with Fassbender, they handle the dialogue with a smooth and confident air, letting the words flow out. But it is their characters facial expressions which really bring them to life. Pitts final scene is powerful and echoes words and advice he told to the counsellor at the start of the film. Bardems greatest moment is in a flash back, as he tells of a night with Malkina (Cameron Diaz) on a golf course. I won’t give away details, but he holds a look that encompasses fear, confusion and a little bit of disgust throughout it all.

Penelope Cruz and Cameron Diaz, who play the two main female characters, fair in varying degrees with the dialogue, but both succeed with the silent moments. Like their male counterparts, they bring them to life with the simple gestures, smiles, glances or the wrinkle of a brow. It’s hard to go into details about these two, as a lot of their best moments come late on and would give away some key moments.

Visually this film is superb, as you would come to expect from any Ridley Scott film, set mostly in the desert, Scott and Dariusz Wolski make each barren landscape a pleasure to look at. Even when you know you shouldn’t, or don’t want to. Decapitations and automobile based sexual interactions have never been so beautifully shot.

The Counsellor will worry you, confuse you, entertain you and scare you. Some will love it, others will hate it. But you won’t find another film like it anywhere.

Just be warned, it is certainly not for the squeamish.

World War Z

Taken from Max Brooks ‘ brilliant zombie novel, that charts the course of a decade as the human race, across the globe, fights back against an all encompassing virus. So when it was announced there was going to be a film adaptation of the novel, it was hardly a shock. Here was a story, rich in scope and content, with tens of characters to choose from. So what did they do with it? Yeah, they changed all the but the basic premise, ignored some of the most interesting characters and narrowed the scope.

The basic plot follows Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt) as he and his family at first flee their hometown, which is filling up with fast, dangerous and hungry zombies. They flee to New Jersey, then ultimately to an armada of military ships that have sought sanctuary on the open sea (in the novel, boats aren’t as safe as they are here). Here Gerry is forced to take up his old job as a UN investigator, so his family can stay on the ship, and go and find the source of the cure, and hopefully a cure.

Pitt, as the central character, carries the film on his shoulders, and does it well, considering his revolving door of partners, which restricts him from creating any real kind of relationship. He is believable as an investigator, as he moves and talks with a confidence of a man who doesn’t need to prove his intelligence. Then when the action kicks off, and it does, he is resourceful enough and tough enough to get through the frantic action.

The quality of the film, is determined by what made it into the original script, and what was then reshot later on.  The first two acts of the film, are thoroughly enjoyable and entertaining as we follow Gerry across the globe, including two great set pieces in Korea, a brilliant night time sequence involving the refuelling of a plane whilst under attack from Zombies, or Zeek as the soldiers call them. The second, is the highly advertised Israel section, arguably the high point of the film, I won’t spoil any of the events in that section, but conjours up a terrifying possibility of the zombie invasion.

Then the film drops off and we get a climax that removes the tension and the world wide feel of the conflict, as well as giving us a happier ending, the original was decidedly darker, but much more interesting. It’s just unfortunate that the studio didn’t have the confidence to go with the original, even if it wasn’t as safe or take the same amount of care in building a franchise.

There are sequences where we see large amounts of zombies and people running together and interacting, done with real people with prosthetics, which are believable and some of the scariest in the film. There are also a large amount of CGI shots that ruin the moment, obviously some can’t be achieved with just practical effects. But this film seems scared of that middle ground, of mixing well organized and crafted practical stunts and people, then enhancing them with CGI. One of the biggest disappointments of World War Z, and there are only a few in all honesty, was that it reminded me of I Am Legend.

Go and experience this film, well not all of it, enjoy the first two acts then leave the cinema, you’ll feel more satisfied. You can read the original ending (or hopefully see it on the DVD) or just make up your own one.

Killing Them Softly

This is a film that is concurrently simple and complex, the basic story is where the simplicity comes in, as we witness the robbery of a card game and the fallout as the culprits try to survive and the organized crime community look to find those responsible. Where the complexity comes is from some of the characters and the very political message and it’s comments on America as a society, which gives one of the best closing lines in a film, as it sums everything about the film, it’s characters, world and message. I won’t spoil it here; it’s worth witnessing for yourself.

This is a film that is primarily about characters and violence, more often than not, one or more characters performing an act of violence against another. Starting with the violence, the majority of it is bearable, but there is one ‘beating’ that is genuinely hard to watch, but not because it is over blown or exaggerated. It is played as real as I can imagine this kind of thing looking like, which is probably why it is so hard to watch. The other moments of violence are committed with weapons, almost entirely firearms, and are done with more discretion and efficiency, the act isn’t played out in some grandiose way, it happens and then we move on.

The characters in Killing Them Softly are the big selling point of this film, with a cast led by Brad Pitt, who gives a charismatic yet very understated performance, who plays hitman/enforcer Jackie Cogan who is the men sent to find out what happened and kill those responsible. While he doesn’t immediately arrive in the film, he appears about ten or fifteen minutes in, he quickly establishes himself as the centre of everything as he plans how best to safely get rid of everyone. He switches from frustrated and charming, to manipulating and finally into a merciless cold blooded killer.

The rest of cast has many highlights, two in particular stand out, Ben Mendelsohn as the borderline crazed Russell and James Gandolfini, the aging New York hitman who Cogan brings down to take one of the hits. Mendelsohn gives real life and mannerisms to a characters who could have been just comic relief in other actors hands, but here we get a man who wants to try and get out of the rut and life he is leading at the moment and move to the next echelon in the criminal world, but for reasons I won’t give away, just can’t seem to make it.

Gandolfini as the New York hitman plays the role in a similar way to that of Tony Soprano, but here we get a man, who through two monologues, who is all to aware of his vices and what he has done and that is taking a serious toll on not just him, but also his wife. He knows he is on his last chance, but can’t resist the pull of the work he does, or the rewards that come with it.

Andrew Dominik, in what is only his third feature film (the other two were Chopper and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford) gives the film an interesting look, one that represents the world these characters inhabit, it’s dirty dark and almost completely devoid of any glamour, we spend most of our time in cars, bars and motel rooms. But still the film is shoot beautifully by Grieg Fraser, letting the camera explore this wonderfully horrible places and crimes. The only slight negative that I can say about this film is that one or two of them scenes go on a bit too long, usually they play on long after the point and subject of the conversation has been achieved. A bit more prejudicial editing may have benefitted the films pacing.

This isn’t a film for the faint hearted; it goes in deep with violence and the effect of those actions of the people connected. While the plot is simple, it’s for the characters and the ideas behind it that is the real attraction and payoff to the film.