I think that The Counselor is not an enjoyable movie, but I think that it is one of Ridley Scott’s best because it reflects how he really feels about the world without hiding his feelings so his films can be commercially successful (Prometheus). He has been angry for years now, railing against death and ridiculing the Christian faith in rage at whatever is going on in his life. The Counselor repetitively and bleakly emphasizes that the world is a cruel and merciless place that will destroy you in the most excruciating way, and you shouldn’t even take it personally. During one beheading scene, there is a billboard in the background that says, “Keep the faith.” The message is clear. Faith is a waste of time and is powerless in the face of horror. One selfless deed will lead to death. Faith will abandon you and turn away rather than face evil. The devil wins, but the devil is a woman so….and that is why The Counselor is a bad movie. One of my favorite media producers, Aaron Rand Freeman, has constantly said that men feel powerless during sex and vulnerable with the emotions it sparks because a woman can have so much power over a man, and there is nothing he can do about it. Some men react negatively to it; thus misogynistic aspects in daily life, and vagina dentata in films. The Counselor is literally and figuratively scared of vaginas, and not even in a misogynistic way, but truly terrified of them-how they look, their hidden agenda, how powerless they are when they like one in particular. In some ways, it is a very Catholic movie: sex is the original sin-more shocking and confession worthy than death. Oral sex is considered the absolute filthiest, nastiest and shocking thing that you can do. In the twenty-first century, I consider that kind of quaint and sweet that Scott and Cormac McCarthy still think that way, and I’m a 39 year old Christian virgin. I may not get around, but I live in this century and have eyes and ears. Gentleman, stay in your homes and don’t even peek outside–you cannot handle what is going on out here. Here is the best part, it is more shocking than these gentlemen can imagine, and no one dies. It is just a part of daily life. The Counselor could not have been made in France. The Counselor is very film noir despite the vibrant visual palette. I kind of hate the genre where everyone is a master criminal until they aren’t, and everything goes wrong when little Timmy down the street could see this trouble coming a mile away. I also thought that it was a bit tiresome that some horrific thing would be discussed in lengthy detail then inevitably be shown later in the movie-Chekhov’s gun. There are white people in Barbados, but did they seriously expect the viewer to believe that Cameron Diaz was a Barbadian? I actually liked Diaz in The Counselor-I felt that she was very committed in it, and unlike her colleagues, I didn’t feel like she referenced other roles to execute her job. I need people to stop making Javier Bardem look like a freak show. At the end of the day, I think that what saves The Counselor is Ruben Blades’ phone conversation with the titular character. I think that it is brilliant in its casual resignation of devastating reality in the face of a personal apocalypse. Honestly if that scene was the entire film, The Counselor would have been a perfect short film. The Counselor aims for an anti-sacrificial lamb message, but ends up being a repetitive masturbatory exploration of Scott’s trite fear of death and sex. If you decide to watch it out of a commitment to all things Ridley Scott or any one in the cast, then put on the closed caption and give The Counselor your full attention because you can lose a thread in the lengthy monologues and begin to wonder why a character started out discussing one thing and ended up talking about another–movie logic.