Counselor, The (Blu-ray) (2013)

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General		Extras
Category	Thriller	Audio Commentary-Director Ridley Scott Featurette-Truth of the Situation: Making The Counselor
Rating
Year Of Production	2013
Running Time	137:56
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Ridley Scott
Studio Distributor	Twentieth Century Fox	Starring	Michael Fassbender Penelope Cruz Javier Bardem Cameron Diaz Brad Pitt
Case	Standard Blu-ray
RPI	?	Music	Daniel Pemberton

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English DTS HD Master Audio 5.1 English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.40:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	1080p
Original Aspect Ratio	2.40:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English for the Hearing Impaired Spanish French Danish Finnish Italian Norwegian Portuguese Russian Swedish Estonian Latvian Hindi Mandarin Ukranian	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

     Some films have a plot that takes paragraphs to outline: The Counselor is not one of them. The Counselor (Michael Fassbender), madly in love with Laura (Penelope Cruz), enters a deal with his business partner Reiner (Javier Bardem) and Reiner’s current lover Malkina (Cameron Diaz) to import $20 million worth of cocaine from a cartel in Mexico to be distributed in Chicago through Westray (Brad Pitt). When the truck carrying the drugs is hijacked the cartel believes the Counselor and his acquaintances are involved. Facing retribution, the Counselor is well out of his depth placing everything he loves in peril.

     The Counselor is directed by Ridley Scott. This film was made between Prometheus (2012) and Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014) and it would be fair to say that The Counselor was not well received. With a rottentomatoes.com audience score of 23% and a critics’ score of 35%, the consensus is that the film is “a wordy and clumsy suspense thriller that’s mercilessly short on suspense or thrills”. Others, however, have championed the film and I think that one’s reaction to the worth of the film depends on whether it is indeed considered as a suspense thriller or something else entirely, specifically as a psychological drama, a study of a man caught in the consequences of an initial decision that spiral well out of his control.

     While The Counselor is a Ridley Scott film, the context, content and the tone of the film I think is down to its writer Cormac McCarthy. McCarthy is a novelist whose books have been turned into films such as The Road (2009) and No Country for Old Men (2007). The Counselor is his first original screenplay and it continues McCarthy’s interest in flawed individuals; no-one in The Counselor, with the exception of Laura, is innocent. The Counselor is also very, very wordy; some dialogue is insightful, some poetic, there are frequent ruminations about sex and the character of women plus conversations on philosophy, greed, grief, consequences, death and diamonds. This wordiness is even more so in this “Extended Cut” of the film which is over 17 minutes longer than the theatrical release; for details of the difference see here.

     Another decision that may alienate viewers is the decision to throw us into the story with neither backstory of the characters nor exposition. We watch things happen without necessarily knowing what we are seeing; the people are just there and we don’t learn much about them or their motivations. For example, we don’t know why the Counselor needs the money. A lack of explanation is not a bad thing in itself, and it is probably better than over-exposition, but the confusion is compounded by the number of other, often unnamed, characters that populate the film for brief moments. There are betrayals, double crosses and murders, but in most cases one is never sure just who the individuals are.

     The main reason the film holds one’s interest, however, is the stellar cast who also have an array of interconnections with each other in real life! Penelope Cruz does not have a lot to do and hers is the least interesting character. She won a best supporting actress Oscar for Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008); on this set she co-starred with Javier Bardeen and they became a couple. They do not share any screen time in The Counselor; when filming she was pregnant. Bardem, of course, won an Oscar for his performance in No Country for Old Men, based on another Cormac McCarthy story! Cameron Diaz appeared with Penelope Cruz in Vanilla Sky (2001), while both Brad Pitt and Michael Fassbender were in Inglourious Basterds (2009).

     Fassbender is the key for it is his character’s descent from grace to hell that is the core of the film. The Counselor is handsome, arrogant and in control, his love for Laura his only chink which, of course, will be exploited resulting in his breakdown; it is in the convincingness, or not, of his performance in these final sequences that are the key to whether you think The Counselor is successful as a drama. His performance is certainly intense, although I am not sure that it completely works. Elsewhere some familiar faces including John Leguizamo, Ruben Blades and Natalie Dormer make brief cameos.

     Ridley Scott is pretty much incapable of making a poor film; there are well staged action sequences The Counselor, it is tense and bloody while the sets, acting and the look of the film are all impressive. Those expecting a fast paced thriller, however, will be disappointed. Instead, with its philosophical dialogue, steady pacing and refusal to explain almost everything, The Counselor could be considered an art film (although Scott in his audio commentary says he dislikes the label), a psychological study of a character in control of his life until greed and the consequences of a choice made condemn him to a spiral towards destruction over which he has no control.

Video

     The Counselor is presented in an aspect ratio of 2.40:1, in 1080p using the MPEG-4 AVC code.

     Detail is sharp although the colours have been manipulated and sometimes look dull. The exterior scenes set in Texas / New Mexico and Mexico (shot in Spain) are very bright and glossy with some vibrant yellow sequences; skin tones can also look very yellow. The scenes in Amsterdam and London have a steely grey / blue look which does affect shadow detail. Blacks and shadow detail are otherwise good, contrast and brightness consistent.

     Marks are not present but there is some blur with motion against vertical blinds or a wire fence.

     English subtitles for the hearing impaired are available as well as a wide range of European languages, plus Mandarin and Hindi.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

     The film audio is English DTS-HD MA 5.1 plus there is an English commentary track in Dolby Digital 2.0.

     The Counselor is a word heavy film so thankfully the dialogue is clean and easy to understand. The surrounds mostly feature ambient effects such as voices or splashes in the pool scenes or at the polo club plus the score although the shots or engines, especially the motor bike as it roars past, are loud and reverberate. The subwoofer is not over used but adds depth when required. The score by Daniel Pemberton was subtle and effective; it also was not overdone and adds appropriately to the tone of the visuals.

     There are no lip synchronisation issues.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Truth of the Situation: Making The Counselor

     This is an excellent extra that combines an audio commentary by director by Ridley Scott with featurettes that play automatically throughout his commentary as the film and commentary pause. There are 13 separate featurettes (as detailed below); they can also be selected from the menu where they can be selected individually or there is a play all option. Total running time for these featurettes is 78:32.

     In his commentary Ridley Scott is genuine and full of thoughts and information. He talks about how he received the screenplay, meeting McCarthy, the long version of the film and specific scenes, locations in Spain and England, his filmmaking techniques and philosophy, shooting digital, editing, the cast, the budget, script and plot points, the clothes design. There are some silences as Scott watches the film but this is a decent commentary.

     The 13 video featurettes involve on set and location footage, some bits of blue-screen, script pages, pre-viz, stills and comments by a range of individuals including Scott and, in various places, cast Michael Fassbender, Cameron Diaz, Javier Bardeen and crew Cormac McCarthy (writer), Arthur Max ( production designer), Janty Yates (costume designer), an executive producer, location manager, cheetah handler. The individual sections are:

• Tragic Consequences: the screenplay, scripting and meeting Cormac McCarthy.
• A Different Southwest: filming America and Mexico in Spain.
• The Counselor: the character of the Counselor and Michael Fassbender.
• Pool Party: filming the pool party scene and the culture of excess.
• Reiner: the character of Reiner, his relationship with Malkina and Javier Bardem.
• Laura: the character of Laura and Penelope Cruz.
• Malkina: the character of Malkina and Cameron Diaz.
• Polo Club: filming the sequence at the Polo Club.
• Lensing the Dark World: the vision and filmmaking style of Ridley Scott.
• Westray: the character, costume of Westray and Brad Pitt.
• Downward Spiral: preparing and shooting the last scene between Reiner and the Counselor when everything is going pear-shaped.
• The Cheetahs: working with and filming the cheetahs.
• The Bolito: constructing, testing the bolito and filming the scene of its use.

     Both the Region A US and Region B UK Blu-rays of The Counselor are two disc releases containing both the theatrical and extended cuts of the film. The extra on the Extended Cut is the same as ours; there is also a 7 minute extra on the theatrical cut. With both cuts of the film, the other regions win.

     Viewing The Counselor is a bit like sitting in a café in your town and watching the people go by. Mostly you have no idea who the individuals are, where they are going or where they have been. Then occasionally, you will see someone you recognise who is a person you know something about. With its refusal to explain and intense dialogue The Counselor is like a passing parade but if you are patient, allow it to unfurl at its own pace and you pay attention, the film has its rewards.

     The video and audio are fine, the extra, combining an audio commentary and video featurettes, is excellent.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall