The Counselor - C+

Rated R, 111 minutes

Stylish but unsatisfying "The Counselor" all over the map

Cameron Diaz and Penelope Cruz

In spite of a talented director, an acclaimed writer and a gifted, award-winning cast, the slick but unsatisfying thriller "The Counselor" fails to deliver the goods. The film tells the story of a greedy lawyer, known only as The Counselor (Michael Fassbender), who finds himself in over his head when he decides to delve into the dark world of drug trafficking. Entangled with him is his naive girlfriend Laura (Penelope Cruz); Westray (Brad Pitt), a seedy middleman and Reiner (Javier Bardem) and Malkina (Cameron Diaz), a mysterious and dangerous couple. Directed by Ridley Scott, written by Cormac McCarthy ("No Country For Old Men") writing his first original screenplay, "The Counselor" is a vapid thriller that gets points for style but is otherwise all over the place in developing its story and characters. There are a couple of memorable scenes (Pitt's demise and Diaz's romp on a car windshield), but the film jumps back and forth from one character to another, enough time to just skim the surface. Interestingly, Scott's usual heavy-handed visual flair is toned down some here (very few jumpy edits), and while the film has a nice, dark and often bloody sheen to it, it fails under McCarthy's scattershot screenplay, which inserts a few stilted, heady monologues about life and death that provide little insight. Fasssbender has the best performance though a miscast Diaz will receive the most notices as a brilliant but scary sociopath; the role of a strong woman like this requires a strong actress, and as devilish as Diaz tries to be, she doesn't deliver. Bardem chews through the scenery, while his real-life wife Cruz is wasted in a very small role as Fassbender's love interest. "The Counselor" has a few entertaining scenes, but considering the talent involved in front of and behind the camera, it's a disappointment.

Wes's Grade: C+