Ridley Scott has certainly had a few “misunderstood” films throughout his career — some of his now classics, particularly “Blade Runner,” and “Alien” were initially met with mixed reviews.
One other Scott film that seems to have garnered a large cult following over the years is 2013’s "The Counselor," which had a screenplay penned by the late Cormac McCarthy.
“The Counselor”, which revolved around a lawyer and a drug deal gone bad, was most famous for its scene of a scantily clad Cameron Diaz having sex with an expensive car. Suffice to say, the critical reception was terrible and its box-office was disastrous.
Its 35% Rotten Tomatoes score might turn you off, but some folks completely abide by this film, and critics like Glenn Kenny and Manhola Dargis have been defending it since its release. Ditto Guillermo del Toro who has stated that he loves “The Counselor” on a “molecular level,” adding that the film was “brilliant” and “underappreciated.”
More recently, Scott Tobias argued in favor of adding “The Counselor” to a “New Cult Canon.” The Guardian also called it a “great” and “misunderstood film. Now we have IndieWire’s Jim Hemphill saying that it’s “a masterpiece that improves with age.”
This cultish love for “The Counselor” resulted in it being named the ninth best film of Scott’s career in a recent critics poll. Will it continue to rise up in the rankings? Is Scott’s film destined to become one of the seminal statements of his career?
In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Scott vented about the bad reception “The Counselor” garnered, but was glad to see it finally getting its due via the reappraisal:
Cormac McCarthy, in my world, is probably the best dialogue writer ever. The Counselor is one of my favorites of my movies, but it’s a very dark subtext, and you can feel it coming from minute one. It’s so dark because it’s based on a certain amount of truth. I was so disappointed, and I don’t know who to blame because I think the film is really fuckin’ good. It’s so fun and cynical. People take it so seriously! People are getting it now. It’s always annoying because my films tend to get got later. The famous one is Blade Runner, which was dead for twenty years.
For the time being, I can’t say that I agree with the reappraisal, but I’ve also not seen “The Counselor” since its release. It was a film that, I admit, caught me off guard, and gave me something that I didn’t expect. In a nutshell, it was this plotless romp with graphic violence, sex and an abundance of McCarthy's well known philosophical speak.