On the face of it, this is a star-studded movie about the drug trade from Mexico. On the face of it, this would be a great movie. I mean, Ridley Scott directed this, so it is clearly going to be insightful, gripping, and done well.
Michael Fassbender is our main character. He's the counselor himself, and he gets involved in the drug trade strictly out of greed. Given that he already has quite a bit of money and the lovely Penélope Cruz on his arm, I suppose he is being painted as one of those too-much-is-never-enough kind of guys. It would seem that he is smart enough to figure out that the risk/reward combo is not going to swing to his benefit any time soon when he enters the criminal enterprise.
Javier Bardem is the guy who is supposed to guide him in this life, but he doesn't come off as particularly competent, and I can't imagine anyone as smart as Fassbender's character is supposed to be relying on him for any part of this. Javier's most noteworthy personal characteristic is that he has two cheetahs that he takes with him to many places, and he also has an orange face.
Cameron Diaz brings a terrible haircut and an unusually unlikable character. She usually plays the girl next door, if the girl next door had stunningly good looks. But she plays a self-serving bitch of a woman who cannot relate in any way with the religious and innocent Penélope, even though the two are thrust into situations together. She is a genuinely terrible person, and even her boyfriend, Javier, doesn't trust her.
Brad Pitt enters as the man who is clearly the worst drug smuggling organizer on the planet. He's supposed to come off as worldly and wise, but he doesn't do it at all. Instead, he's cocky and unsympathetic. Further, he does not come of as a believable person. For example, he details the entire operations from beginning to end to Fassbender, who he just met. He makes no attempt to discover if there are listening devices involved or if Fassbender even is who he says he is.
The whole movie comes off as a brief attempt at developing an actual story without bothering to do it. Instead, it develops emotions that aren't rooted in anything in a world that is so distractingly dull that it's hard to even give a crap about what these overly emotional characters are feeling and doing.
Direction was okay
Acting was generally okay
Story was very weak
Dialog was pretty terrible
The cheetahs were lovely
1.25/5