The Counsellor

Ridley Scott thriller is nasty, brutish and short or mysterious, upsetting and alluring

The Counsellor is a cinematic room divider: some people will like it, saying it is stylish and daring. Others will find it truncated, slick and pretentious. Whichever room you end up in, The Counsellor has a tang of its own. This violent, colorful thriller overflows with bravado and, like matching collars and cuffs, identical foreboding. The motto here is that bad things happen to bad people but when they're bad people we sort of like, it's different.

Ridley Scott’s latest thriller is the first original screenplay written by novelist Cormac McCarthy. The author, responsible for No Country For Old Men among many others, had the original screenplay published in October and it differs from the finished film in several ways, as most screenplays will. (Hardly anyone locks down a script these days.) What is interesting about this is that it stresses the difference between the media – books are not films nor vice versa. The story can be enjoyed, differently, either way.

The audience know they're in trouble. But as this is McCarthy, we'll hang on

The plot is easy to follow even if there is little explanation for those not paying attention. Counsellor is the handsome and successful lawyer (Michael Fassbender) at the centre of this crime thriller. About to wed his beautiful, understanding girlfriend (Penélope Cruz), he becomes embroiled in an enormous drug deal. Meanwhile, his pro bono work brings him into contact with a female convict (Rosie Perez) whose son is put in jail for speeding. He's carrying $12K on an expensive bike and he's in jail for a $400 fine? The audience can smell the heady stink of “get the heck out of there”. Counsellor cannot. After all, he just bought an enormous diamond for his lady from Bruno Ganz, who explains how diamonds are rated. In many ways, it's the happiest part of the film.

Cameron Diaz and Penelope Cruz in The CounsellorMeanwhile, peculiar gangster type Reiner (Javier Bardem) and his even stranger girlfriend, Malkina (Cameron Diaz, pictured with Cruz), have so much money to burn that she has silver fingernails and they spend the whole day watching a pair of tame cheetahs chase hares over the plains. A deeper discussion includes the line, "I think truth has no temperature." Hearing this, the audience know they're in trouble. But as this is McCarthy, we're attempting art, so we'll hang on. Oh, that  “car scene” – Diaz’s character rubs herself against a windscreen - is not as shocking as it sounds. Reiner’s reaction, however, is worth the ticket price. The whole sequence is sexy, off-putting and hilarious.

Enter Nudie-wearing drug dealer Brad Pitt who is testing out that "know when to fold ‘em" quote from the song The Gambler. He decides, after telling Counsellor how much trouble he’s in, to escape his life of crime and, presumably, go straight. But when there’s $20 million worth of cocaine from Juárez, this is not so easy.

Cold and calculating and too deft for the cheap seats, The Counsellor starts out with a stellar cast and a lot of class – from its production design to its cinematography. But it is a hard sell: a cold story with cold people in it, in a world that is ruthless, harsh and cruel. To paraphrase Thomas Hobbes, some may think The Counsellor is nasty, brutish and short - clearly edited down to 117 minutes. But it could also be called mysterious, upsetting and alluring. The jury’s still out. It may be for some time.

 

BRAD PITT’S BIG MOMENTS

Brad Pitt in The Big ShortAllied. Doomed but entertaining attempt to revive 1940s Hollywood

Fury. David Ayer and Brad Pitt take the war film by the scruff of the neck

Inglorious Basterds. Pitt is gloriously absurd in Tarantino WW2 alternative history

Killing Them Softly. Brad Pitt cleans up an almighty mess in Andrew Dominik’s high-calibre crime ensemble

Moneyball. How Billy Beane created a revolution in Major League baseball

The Big Short. Pitt’s on the money as director Adam McKay successfully makes a drama out of a crisis

The Tree of Life. Terrence Malick’s elliptical epic leads us through time, space and one family’s story

PLUS ONE TURKEY

World War Z. It's World War with a Zee as Brad Pitt battles the undead and a zombie script

Overleaf: watch the trailer to The Counsellor

The Butler

Forest Whitaker headlines a painful, poignant and victorious benchmark movie

As a movie it’s a little too neat and a little too worthy but as a benchmark The Butler is a triumph with a strong cast. Director Lee Daniels doesn’t get arty with this story of racial divide and American unrest. Roughly based on the real-life story of Eugene Allen, Daniels' approach is straightforward and highly emotive. There’s plenty for the crowd here, and, like Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s Don Jon, the fact that The Butler is accessible across almost every demographic will get its message through to those who need to see it - those who maybe wouldn't see it if it were, say, art house. In some ways, the softer Butler is a filmic preparation for the agony of 12 Years A Slave.

In a tempered, credible performance, Forest Whitaker leads as Cecil Gaines, a southern African-American raised on a cotton plantation run by Thomas Westfall (Alex Pettyfer) and his mother Annabeth Westfall (Vanessa Redgrave). There, Cecil's father (an excellent performance by David Banner) has to watch on as his wife (Mariah Carey) is habitually raped and abused. Cecil eventually runs away and, starving, breaks a window to get to some cake. In a time when white people could kill black people on a whim, Cecil is discovered by a black clerk Maynard (Clarence Williams III) who teaches him the nuances of serving ignorant white people in a time of segregation. Cecil learns to survive amid the life-crushing racism of the era.

When Maynard turns down a job in Washington DC, he puts Cecil up for it. Serving in a posh hotel soon leads to a call from the White House where scary Freddie Fallows (Colman Domingo), a White House maître d’, subjects Cecil to a tough interview.

Robin Williams, James Marsden, Minka Kelly, Liev Schreiber, James DuMont, Nelsan Ellis, Jesse Williams and Colin Walker appear as famous figures from the past, all of whom cross paths with Cecil. Alan Rickman as Ronald Reagan and Jane Fonda as Nancy Reagan are particularly impressive while John Cusack's impersonation of Richard Nixon may take a few moments to sink in. Once you see the prosthetic nose, however… Other strong performances come from Cecil’s family: Oprah Winfrey as Gloria, his wife, making her first return to the screen in many years, is superb in her comic and dramatic timing. David Oyelowo has a surefooted presence as Louis, the eldest son, and an adorable Elijah Kelly almost steals the show as Charlie, the youngest brother. Cuba Gooding Jr, Lenny Kravitz and Terrence Howard (pictured above right with Winfrey) are excellent as Cecil’s serving White House colleagues. A discovery performance comes from Yaya Alafia, as Louis' revolutionary girlfriend with attitude (and armpit hair).

Based on the article “A Butler Served Well By This Election”, The Butler is a film that needed to be made. A crowd-pleaser that educates and illuminates, it may condense history and glide over the rough patches. But it is not a documentary: its strength lies in the road it paves. Like Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom (released early next year), The Butler isn’t a work of art but it is a film that everyone needs to see. Etched with tears and laughs, this is appealing historical entertainment at its most important.

Overleaf: watch the trailer for The Butler

Seduced and Abandoned

Alec Baldwin and James Toback team up to take down Hollywood

The 65th Cannes film festival acts as the backdrop for this compelling, if somewhat misguided documentary from James Toback. Accompanied by Alec Baldwin, Toback sets out to shame Hollywood for its decision to continually churn out megabuck franchises and mediocrity rather than investing in risky, original cinema as the pair try to get funding for their own film project.

RIPD

Body-swap buddy-cop apocalypse caper adapted from graphic novel

Sometimes, a little bit of everything amounts to a whole lot of nothing. RIPD features a standard buddy cop caper bolted on to a heaven-can-wait drama channelling a body swap comedy also starring a CGI cartoon element. There’s even a heavy dollop of the old Wild West and a splodge of Armageddon alarmism. You get a grab-bag of half a dozen film styles jostling for attention. It must be like this teaching a classful of needy reception kids with ADD.

Listed: The 20 best movie songs

LISTED: THE 20 BEST MOVIE SONGS Songs sung by actors in character can capture a film's essence, and here's the proof

Songs sung by actors in character can capture a film's essence, and here's the proof

Seeing and hearing A Field in England's Richard Glover sing "Baloo, My Boy" while in bedraggled character reminded me of the power often exerted by songs explicitly or implicitly germane to a movie's narrative.

Sound of Cinema: The Music that Made the Movies, BBC Four

Music to our ears: a TV arts series that takes Hollywood music, and the audience, seriously

BBC Four’s new series Sound of Cinema: The Music that Made the Movies is shocking. The overwhelming majority of arts-based TV consists of programmes consigning specialist knowledge/presenters to the sidelines in favour of dumbed-down, easily digestible generalisations mouthed by all-purpose TV-friendly faces. But this three-part series is fronted by, gasp, a composer who uses insider knowledge to hook and hold the viewers.

Prom 59: Hollywood Rhapsody, John Wilson Orchestra

PROM 59: HOLLYWOOD RHAPSODY, JOHN WILSON ORCHESTRA A blissful musical journey through the Golden Age of Hollywood

A blissful musical journey through the Golden Age of Hollywood

Proms enthusiast that I am, it still isn't often that I leave the Royal Albert Hall with a face that aches from smiling for hours on end. But judging by the endlessly ecstatic applause that greeted John Wilson and his orchestra at the end of every piece (and occasionally during) of the Hollywood Rhapsody Prom, I was by no means the only one.

Rhapsody! How to programme a Hollywood Prom

RHAPSODY! Conductor John Wilson on putting together the programme for last night's acclaimed Hollywood Prom,

The conductor John Wilson on putting together a musical celebration of Hollywood

Fingers on buzzers: which piece of music at this year’s Proms boasts a percussion section including glockenspiel, xylophone, five pitches of cowbells, car horn, taxi horn, anvils, revolving door noise, smashing glass, bubble-wrap-popping, pistol-shot and elastic band? OK, here’s a clue: it’s by Scott Bradley (1891-1977). Who?

The Drowned Man: A Hollywood Fable, Temple Studios

THE DROWNED MAN: A HOLLYWOOD FABLE, TEMPLE STUDIOS In their new show set in a seedy Hollywood outpost, Punchdrunk's theatrical magic loses some of its allure

In their new show set in a seedy Hollywood outpost, Punchdrunk's theatrical magic loses some of its allure

A decaying London outpost of the Hollywood movie-making machine, where dreams are spun on celluloid, and reality and fantasy intertwine in a nightmarish danse macabre of desperation and dark desire... that’s the concept behind this new immersive piece by the acclaimed site-specific innovators Punchdrunk. In execution, the experience is rather less mesmerising.

Much Ado About Nothing

Josh Whedon takes on - wait for it - Shakespeare in celluloid oddity

Ever wondered what Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel creator, not to mention superhero movie A-lister Josh Whedon, does during his down time? Well, apparently he gets his pals together to have a go at the Bard. And by way of proof, along comes Whedon's film adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing, which plays like nothing so much as a home movie in Elizabethan tongue.

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