Ridley Scott Defends His 2013 Film The Counselor Against 'Disastrous Reviews': 'Too Dark for the Average Person'

Ridley Scott’s directing résumé speaks for itself, with hit films like Alien (1979), Blade Runner (1982) and the Gladiator franchise being just some of his gems.

Despite the sheer number of films attached to his name, the director and producer recently revealed he has a particular soft spot for the 2013 film The Counselor.

“The Counselor, to me, was the best dialogue I’ve ever had,” Scott, 86, confessed in a Nov. 7 interview with The Hollywood Reporter. But many early reviewers didn’t share Scott’s same love for Cormac McCarthy’s script.

The Counselor follows a lawyer known only as Counselor (Michael Fassbender) as he embarks on a particularly dangerous drug deal he decides to pursue with Reiner (Javier Bardem), who’s a member of a well-known drug cartel. Despite the warnings from others, the Counselor pursues the dangerous deal, though it quickly goes south and puts his new fiancée, Laura (Penélope Cruz), in danger. Cameron Diaz, Brad Pitt and Rosie Perez also feature in the film.

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The movie currently sits at a 33% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, garnering some mixed reviews from critics over the years. When it was first released in 2013, most reviewers were unimpressed with the film. Variety’s Peter Debruge took particular note of the film’s deluge of dialogue, claiming it “alientat[ed] audiences” as “an appallingly miscast group of A-list stars fumble their way through thickets of dense philosophical dialogue.”

Scott, however, had a different take on the script and casting.

“[McCarthy] brought it to me with [producer] Nick Wechsler. I said, ‘I’ll do it now, but it has to be now.’ And from that, I got it cast in two weeks — Michael Fassbender, Brad Pitt, Javier Bardem, Penélope Cruz, Cameron Diaz … they were all fighting to do these parts,” Scott said of the film. “I got some disastrous reviews, I’m told. It was very good film, but too dark for the average person. I think the dialogue is beautiful.”

In his discussion with The Hollywood Reporter, Scott revealed he rarely reads reviews of his work anymore, particularly after a scathing four-page piece was published in The New Yorker by Pauline Kael for Blade Runner.

“It was four pages of destruction. I never met her. I was so offended,” Scott said. “I framed those pages and they’ve been in my office for 30 years to remind me there’s only one critic that counts and that’s you. I haven’t read critiques ever since. Because if it’s a good one, you can get a swollen head and forget yourself. And if it’s a bad one, you’re so depressed that it’s debilitating."