TheRetroCritic

Back in 2007, The Coen Brothers swept the Oscars with No Country For Old Men , the bleak tale of a man who finds a briefcase full of money only to then be hunted by a madman. Based on Cormac McCarthy's novel, this was a return to darker territory for the Coens after a couple of more light-hearted efforts. An exploration of young and old, good and evil, right and wrong, No Country For Old Men was maybe Ethan and Joel Coen's most serious and dense film since Miller's Crossing . It stood out mostly thanks to a chilling performance by Javier Bardem as Anton Chigurh, the psychopath with twisted morals who toys with innocents and kills people with an oxygen tank. Tommy Lee Jones' Texas Sheriff Ed is our good guy who desperately tries to make sense of this new unpredictable brand of evil that has landed on his doorstep and Josh Brolin's everyman Llewelyn is the one in the middle of it all who meant well but doomed himself and others by taking something that didn't

Not really a fan of Ridley Scott's recent non-sci-fi works, I nevertheless give the odd interesting-looking one a go. Matchstick Men , American Gangster all had fun elements to them. Now, with The Counselor , you've got a star-studded cast and talented novelist Cormac McCarthy, responsible for No Country For Old Men , writing the script. Sounded promising. Yet, from the very first scene, it's pretty clear that this is one of those Ridley Scott projects that tries very hard, maybe a little too hard to be arty and "modern" in its approach, like A Good Year . While not as insufferable as the latter, The Counselor still has its overly pretentious scenes, most of which could be cut without it the film losing anything. This being McCarthy's first time writing a feature film of that type, it was always going to be a bit wordier than it should be but all those awkward conversations which characters have constantly in this movie just drag its pace down to a sta