Film review: The Counsellor (18, 117mins)

Audiences may require counselling sessions after two hours of twisted desire and treachery in the company of Ridley Scott’s erotically charged thriller.

Cameron Diaz’s all-guns-blazing portrayal is accompanied by terrific performances from Michael Fassbender and Penelope Cruz.

All three are badly let down, though, by Cormac McCarthy’s overly complicated and wordy script, which isn’t remotely interested in the protagonists’ emotional turmoil, just their suffering.

Fassbender plays a nameless counsellor, who invests his fortune in a drug trafficking operation across the Texas-Mexico border. Inevitably, the deal goes bad and the counsellor is marked for death.

The Counsellor looks glorious, courtesy of Scott’s customary impeccable visuals, but all of that style means nothing when we can’t forge an emotional bond to the characters as they wallow through the mire.

Thriller/Romance/Action. Michael Fassbender, Penelope Cruz, Cameron Diaz, Javier Bardem, Brad Pitt, Rosie Perez, Bruno Ganz, Goran Visnjic. Director: Ridley Scott.

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