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'The Counselor': Cormac McCarthy's script stumbles, critics say - latimes.com

As his Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award attest, Cormac McCarthy has had plenty of success on the page, and several of his novels have also been adapted to the screen with good results, most notably "No Country for Old Men," which won four Academy Awards. But McCarthy's screenwriting debut, the new crime thriller "The Counselor," seems to be another matter.

According to film critics, McCarthy's original screenplay is by turns stilted, gruesome and alienating, and neither director Ridley Scott nor his all-star cast — including Michael Fassbender, Penelope Cruz, Cameron Diaz, Javier Bardemand Brad Pitt — can salvage it.

The Times' Kenneth Turan writes, "As cold, precise and soulless as the diamonds that figure briefly in its plot, 'The Counselor' is an extremely unpleasant piece of business." Though the film is "ably directed" and the cast is impressive, "everyone here is the prisoner of 'The Counselor's' clumsy puppet master, screenwriter Cormac McCarthy … who's apparently been eager to write directly for the screen for some time but should have stifled the impulse."

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