Anyone who loves movies has to be looking forward to Ridley Scott’s upcoming drama The Counselor. Even if you’re like me and largely unimpressed with Scott’s contemporary work, the words ‘written by Cormac McCarthy’ are likely to get you into the seats. So it’s very exciting to see the first teaser for The Counselor … even if it is in Russian.
Yeah, sorry about that. The English-language teaser has yet to hit. But even in Russian, The Counselor looks pretty damn amazing. The film stars Michael Fassbender as a lawyer – known only as Counselor in the credits – who finds himself involved in drug trafficking, coming into contact with villains (Javier Bardem), a weird-looking Brad Pitt and the gorgeous Penelope Cruz.
The footage in the Russian teaser looks appropriate to McCarthy’s usual combination of noir violence, philosophical introspection and terse prose style. The images are quick and punchy, the violence evident from the opening motorcycle scene, and the characters … the characters look pretty creepy.
McCarthy’s novels tend to have a sense of the inevitability of collapse. Death is predetermined, violence poetic and visceral. Ridley Scott is a poetic filmmaker, though, and if he can pull it off in film form, as the Coen Brothers did with No Country For Old Men, then The Counselor will be a truly spectacular film. Right now, the images are least sharp and attractive.
The Counselor also stars Cameron Diaz, John Leguizamo and Rosie Perez. And if you still need convincing that this movie has the potential to be remarkable, you can read this excerpt from McCarthy’s screenplay that appeared in The New Yorker a few weeks ago. I challenge you to not get excited by that.
The Counselor will open October 25. Check out the trailer below and let us know what you think.
UPDATE: We have now added in the English version of the trailer.