海角大神

The Counselor聽is a milestone event of a film, as it marks the screenwriting debut of Cormac McCarthy, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of books like聽The Road聽补苍诲听No Country for Old Men 鈥� who is arguably one of the best American writers living today. That鈥檚 a lot of expectation to live up to 鈥� especially in the wider and more savage arena of feature-filmmaking. But with a directing heavyweight like Ridley Scott in his corner, not to mention an all-star cast (more an them later), McCarthy certainly has the foundation under him to make an impressive debut on the Hollywood scene.

For the uninitiated: there are two main topics that McCarthy tends to favor in his writing: rumination on the south/southwest region of the United States, and rumination on the darkness and violence that lies in the hearts of human beings.聽The Counselor聽looks to continue in that proud McCarthy tradition on both counts, and this new trailer reveals just how dark the ride will get.

滨苍听The Counselor, Michael Fassbender stars as a respected lawyer living in the Southwest, who tries to take a quick dive into the drug business to make a quick buck. Of course, once he has crossed the border (literally and figuratively) into the dark world of greed and violence, he discovers that even a quick glimpse into the abyss is enough get yourself swallowed by the darkness.

In addition to Fassbender,听The Counselor聽stars Brad Pitt, Javier Bardem,听Breaking Bad鈥榮 Dean Norris, John Leguizamo, Rosie Perez,听Game of Thrones鈥� Natalie Dormer and Cameron Diaz and Pen茅lope Cruz as two femme fatales. All in all an impressive cast. On the filmmaking side of things: the washed-out shadowy tones of Dariusz Wolski鈥檚 (Prometheus,听Pirates of the Caribbean) cinematography聽look to be a suitable match for the pared-down and brutal prose of McCarthy鈥檚 writing, and the direction looks pretty good overall, with some clever visual ideas.

However, based on the clips, it is clear that聽The Counselor聽will also follow the tradition of McCarthy鈥檚 books, which are often punctuated by almost stage play-esque scenes of conversation. The author鈥檚 style is arguably comparable to Tarantino 鈥� if Tarantino hung around academics, intellectuals and scientists, that is. Some moviegoers might be thrown by such an experience, in the same way that McCarthy鈥檚 brutally clean prose has only now and again struck a cord with the mainstream.

Still,听The Counselor聽looks like an interesting experiment, to say the least, and could turn out to be one of the best crime dramas to come along in some time. Or, it could be the next聽Killing Them Softly聽on Brad Pitt鈥檚 resume (read: heavy-handed 鈥渢alkie鈥� disguised as a crime flick). We鈥檒l see.

Kofi Outlaw blogs at Screen Rant.