The Counselor: A Screenplay

by Cormac McCarthy

In early 2012 it was announced that Cormac McCarthy had written his first original screenplay - news which provoked huge excitement, a swift deal and the appointment of Ridley Scott to direct. But this is no ordinary screenplay. This is a work of extraordinary imagination which draws on many of the themes of McCarthy's work as well as taking it to new dark places. It is also written with great descriptive passages counteracting the dialogue, so the reader is given the full experience of the McCarthy prose. It is the story of a lawyer, the Counselor, a man who is so seduced by the desire to get rich, to impress his fiancée Laura, that he becomes involved in a drug-smuggling venture that quickly takes him way out of his depth. His contacts in this are the mysterious and probably corrupt Reiner and the seductive Malkina, so exotic her pets of choice are two cheetahs. As the action crosses the Mexican border, things become darker, more violent and more sexually disturbing than the Counselor has ever imagined.

Genres: Fiction, Plays, Drama, Audiobook, Crime, American, Film

160 pages, Paperback

First published September 12, 2013

About the author

Cormac McCarthy was a highly acclaimed American novelist and screenwriter celebrated for his distinctive literary style, philosophical depth, and exploration of violence, morality, and the human condition. His writing, often characterized by sparse punctuation and lyrical, biblical language, delved into the primal forces that shape human behavior, set against the haunting landscapes of the American South and Southwest.
McCarthy’s early novels, including The Orchard Keeper and Outer Dark, established him as a powerful voice in Southern Gothic literature, while Blood Meridian (1985) is frequently cited as his magnum opus—a brutal, visionary epic about violence and manifest destiny in the American West. In the 1990s, his "Border Trilogy"—All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing, and Cities of the Plain—garnered widespread popularity and critical acclaim, blending coming-of-age themes with philosophical introspection and tragic realism.
His 2005 novel No Country for Old Men was adapted into an Academy Award-winning film by the Coen brothers, and his harrowing post-apocalyptic tale The Road (2006) won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and was also made into a major motion picture. Both works brought him mainstream recognition and a broader readership later in his career.
Despite his fame, McCarthy remained famously private and rarely gave interviews, preferring to let his work speak for itself. His legacy endures through his powerful, often unsettling portrayals of humanity’s struggle with fate, violence, and redemption, making him one of the most influential and original voices in modern American literature.

Reviews

[Darwin8u · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Truth has no temperature.”
― Cormac McCarthy, The Counsellor



This is one of those movies (watched today, after reading said screenplay) where you definitely need the book/screenplay to maximize the message. 'The Counselor' is like a road-map through Hell, if Hell looked like Juarez, moved like Cameron Diaz, and smelled like Javier Bardem's hair gel.

Here is my takeaway:

You are responsible for your own world by the choices you make. The things you consume, the things you watch, your desire, your greed, the people you screw ... you own a chunk of that world, because you are complicit in its creation by your choices. You will ultimately find you can't escape the reckoning of fate or chance because the world created by your choices isn't concerned with anything but extracting from you the ultimate payment. It is a noose that was placed over your head the day you were born son. All you can do is accept it and, occasionally, try and make the world just a little bit better for those you come into contact. Bud don't worry, your entire world will end the day YOU end and in the end your grief bought you absolutely nothing.

Or to quote the JEFE: "I have no wish to pain the world in colors more somber than those it wears, but as the world gives way to darkness it becomes more and more difficult to dismiss the understanding that the world is in fact oneself. It is a thing which you have created, no more no less."

[Ed · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've always enjoyed the dialogue in McCarthy's novels, but stripped of the prose his dramatic works are inevitably crippled. Additionally, reading a screenplay like The Counselor is not the natural way to absorb it, as so much of the intended artistic content is visual and left in the hands of the director.

Regardless of these caveats, I don't think The Counselor is as strong even as McCarthy's other dramatic works. It has a very contemporary feel, it dabbles with modern technology, and it is at times highly sexual - all these feel somehow unnatural and uncomfortable for McCarthy, and there are parts of this screenplay that really don't work, at least on the page (I have yet to see the film).

In some ways The Counselor is standard McCarthy, in that you can expect depravity, grotesque violence and the sense of inevitable destruction. But even considering the limitations of the format, there are some real problems with the execution, and the substance and themes do not seem to run as deep as his other works.

[Howard · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 Stars for The Counselor: A Screenplay (audiobook) by Cormac McCarthy read by Jonathan Davis.

This is such a dark and disturbing story and I just love it. It’s one of my favorite movies. Who knew that Cameron Diaz could pull off such a wicked character. Since this is a screenplay, this story really follows the movie with just a few little changes. If you like No County for Old Men then you should give this a try.

[Diamond Cowboy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a good screen play. I shall give a full review at a later date.

[Wayne Barrett · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5

For the life of me, I can't understand how this one only has a 3.34 rating? I've read all Cormacks novels and now I'm down to reading his plays, and this one just emphasized my disappointment that I am running out of material by him to read. If you are a Cormack fan I would recommend this one. Fuck the rating. This is a great piece.

[Abe · Rating 5 out of 5]

McCarthy is a genius. He can take a story that at first seems like it might be a simple thriller and convert it into a deep, philosophical tale woven with metaphor - all while maintaining every ounce of thrill and grit.

This is one cool story, and its implications are shocking. The dialogue rocks.

[Sam Quixote · Rating 2 out of 5]

A criminal lawyer gets greedy and decides to make more money by naively dabbling in the drug trade. Then a large amount of merchandise is boosted, the counselor is blamed, and the powerful and extremely dangerous forces of the Juarez drug cartels are unleashed. Misery, torture, and death descends upon the counselor and his comfortable life.

I don’t usually read screenplays but I was interested in Cormac McCarthy’s foray into the genre of noir/crime films. I also haven’t seen the movie but there’s a lot of big names connected to it to make it seem appealing: Ridley Scott, Michael Fassbender, Brad Pitt, Penelope Cruz, Cameron Diaz, Javier Bardem. After having read The Counselor though, I don’t think I’m gonna bother checking it out - it’s not a great story and pretty people are unlikely to make it better.

The characters are hard to connect with or care about. They sound like real people generally but occasionally one of them will launch into a very meaningful soliloquy about Life, while the big bad of the story quotes the Spanish poet Antonio Machado every other line to appear intellectual and thoughtful - it doesn’t work. That said, a couple of the monologues are entertaining, though mostly because they’re unconnected to the main story.

Mostly I wondered what I was supposed to be feeling towards them - was I supposed to like the counselor or his drug trafficking contacts? Was I supposed to root for the Juarez psychos to kill them all, one by one? Because I read this seeing the violence unfolding and didn’t feel anything. Some bad people get killed by other bad people. The story feels like misery for the sake of misery and the point about life is what you make it? Well, yeah, for people privileged with choice - I doubt some kid in a third world sweatshop will have much chance at changing his life no matter how hard he wishes because he got born into a shitty situation. Kind of a dumb pseudo-profound point to make.

The story is slow-paced to start with, picks up a bit in the middle, and then totally falls apart in the final act. It’s like McCarthy thinks convolution equals inspired storytelling when all it did was sever what little connection I already had with the story and devolve into a confusing mess. That character double crosses this character who was playing off that character against this other character who double crosses this character and this minor character is suddenly the main character? I’d go back and check to try and figure it all out but I don’t think this awkwardly put together script is worth that.

So, in case you weren’t already aware, the point of The Counselor is that getting mixed up with people who behead others on a daily basis is a BAD thing and should be avoided. That and McCarthy should probably stick to novels!

[Kevin Catalano · Rating 5 out of 5]

So many fantastic lines in the dialogue. Most of my favorites come from Jefe: "I only know that the world in which you seek to undo your mistakes is not the world in which they were made. You are at a cross in the road and here you think to choose. But here there is no choosing. There is only accepting. The choosing was done long ago."

"In any case, to prepare a place in our lives for the tragedies to come is an economy few wish to practice."

"I have no wish to paint the world in colors more somber than those it wears, but as the world gives way to darkness it becomes more and more difficult to dismiss the understanding that the world is in fact oneself. It is a thing which you have created, no more, no less. And when you cease to be, so will the world."

[Josh · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was bad.

As an advocate of Cormac McCarthy's written work, I was surprised to be so let down by this screenplay. It comes off as amateurish, as if it were a rejected script from the 1940s transposed onto current times. It has the elements of the noir crime film: corrupted male protagonist, shady but likeable villains, a femme fatale of sorts, exotic subject matter. But boy does it fall flat by the end. Just another nihilistic story with pointless narratives used to convey quasi-philosophical stuff through characters disguised as thin metaphors. The graphic sexual jargon also seemed very out of place for McCarthy, despite previous novels featuring violation or sex, it just seemed too "controversial," as in an attempt to be so, losing its lustre. It's too bad, because by the end of this screenplay I felt bored and let down.

McCarthy should stick to writing novels about metaphors or even screenplays with two old guys talking to each other. This one just doesn't work.

[Amanda NEVER MANDY · Rating 1 out of 5]

Another strike against Cormac. This was janky and I did not enjoy any part of it. There is a movie (duh, it is a screenplay) and I have no plans of going anywhere near it. The dialogue is over the top annoying and it takes from whatever deep thoughts moment it kept trying to have. It doesn’t help matters that the lifestyle being portrayed is not relatable, so whatever life lesson it was trying to sneak up and tap me on the shoulder with was lost.

[Rafa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Puede que todo se resuma en que soy un friki de Cormac McCarthy

[Teresa · Rating 1 out of 5]

Em 2013, Ridley Scott realizou o filme, O Conselheiro, baseado no guião escrito por Cormac McCarthy. Não o vi porque me aborrecem filmes, ou livros, que têm como tema o tráfico de droga (com honrosa excepção de Breaking Bad), mas tenho dúvidas que seja rigorosamente fiel ao presente livro, não só por algumas cenas de sexo — que não lembram ao diabo (e que seriam difíceis de representar sem recurso a grandes efeitos especiais) — mas também pela extrema violência que, certamente, faria com que alguns espectadores abandonassem a sala; eu, apesar de não ser muito impressionável, fá-lo-ia; da mesma forma que abandonei a leitura do livro a meio da descrição detalhada da cena final de um snuff film.
Gosto muito de Cormac McCarthy, sei que o tema principal da sua obra é o Mal, como tal estou preparada para cenas violentas, mas penso que aqui abusa. 

[Jason Coleman · Rating 2 out of 5]

I haven't seen the film. After its first couple weeks out, it was reduced to one pitiful showing per day at the local multiplex, before Katniss came along, gobbling up screens, and pushed it out altogether. No getting around it, the film tanked. Can't even fall back on the critics, who mostly panned it. So, a total disaster.

Fortunately this is a book site, so we don't need to worry about any of that stuff. While this published screenplay doesn't quite amount to McCarthy's next big step, you will find his arcane diction, that tip-of-the-iceberg storytelling, the abrupt violence, the Hemingway-esque preoccupation with methodical, precise work (you, too, can learn how to decapitate a motorcyclist using only a length of wire and two metal posts). As usual, you won't find an apostrophe, a conversation involving more than two people, or any lucky breaks. It may be minor, but it's very recognizably him, it's McCarthy.

The screenplay medium satisfies McCarthy's increasing tendency toward austerity (interesting development for the guy who once wrote the gnarled-tree-trunk prose in Suttree). Stripping down to the essentials is one thing, however; what he's doing here may be too minimal, even for a movie script. No real characters here, only archetypes, and some have no more than a couple scenes before they're confronted with their cruel fates. They discuss innocence, mercy, their choices, the role of evil in the world. McCarthy's characters are still philosophizing. It's less stuffy, less long-winded, than it was in No Country for Old Men—and the "nothing new under the sun" attitude rings much truer than, and is a direct contradiction of, the earlier book's reactionary lament on Changing Times—but it still stiffens things up on the page, and on the screen it must have been deadly.

McCarthy's vision may now be so dark, so unforgiving, that it's smothering his art. There may be no room for the sense of possibility that gives life to fiction—and too little dimension to his characters to achieve real tragedy.

[Ned · Rating 4 out of 5]

Described as McCarthy's first original screenplay, it is far less satisfying to me than a similar tale of drugs and power in a Godless world where carnal love is the only respite. Yes, truly grim, but without the perspective of the (much needed) moral hero as in, say, No Country for Old Men. Surely, the dialogue of the players is at times breathtakingly fatalistic, and the violence rendered physically as in a script (stylized), and McCarthy is exceptional even on a bad dThkay. Mercifully it was a quick read. Last night I was toward the end, very tired, so saved the ending (which was shaping up nicely). And then I had a dream, where Cormac and I were at a family gathering of some sort and found ourselves alone in a study. He was more frail and kindly in person (as has been my experience with the rare famous people I've encountered), and I asked him to sign my copy of "The Counselor" which I happened to have on my person. He paused then asked me if I was would be uncomfortable if he addressed it to me personally (saying my friends might think it was "gay"). I assured him that anything he would say would be an honor and I was more than confident in myself. Thinking of the others in the house, I mentioned that all these "people" have no clue how great a writer you are. "I know" he said, with a resigned air. This dream was a first for me.

[Jean Ra · Rating 3 out of 5]

No es ni de buen trozo la mejor obra del gran Cormac McCarthy y sin embargo, qué duda cabe, contiene dosis de una lucidez inconmensurable. Viene a ser una reflexión acerca del mundo moderno, en como un hipotético representante de las leyes, al no creer en nada, cree en el único dios verdadero de su siglo: el dinero. Por eso se mete en un chanchullo de narcotráfico. Y obviamente el mundo del dinero está construido con mucha crueldad, pero también con una inteligencia refinada y cruel, propia de un depredador.

En cierta parte nos habla de una película snuff. Dónde se ve a una chica de 14 años que es sodomizada por un tipo enmascarado y de repente éste la decapita con un machete. Por supuesto, nadie que se mete una raya piensa que eso es consecuencia directa de su afición farmacéutica.

Por otro lado, Malinka y sus guepardos, cómo los admira cazar. Son como la metáfora central de la cosmovisión ofrecida por McCarthy en esta obra.

MALKINA: Por supuesto. Una cosa así siempre tiene algo de sexual. Pero esa soltura. Esa libertad. En ninguna parte existe un corazón tan puro como el del depredador. Yo creo que si algo define al cazador es más lo que se ha librado de ser que lo que ha acabado siendo. No hay distinción entre lo que es y lo que hace. Y lo que hace es matar. Nosotros, claro está, somos de otra especie. Me temo que no estamos bien hechos para el camino que hemos elegido. Nos gustaría correr un velo sobre tanta sangre y tanto horror. Sangre y horror que nos han traído a donde estamos ahora. Es nuestro endeble corazón lo que nos hace cerrar los ojos a todo eso, pero con ello no hace sino labrar nuestro destino. Tú quizás no lo ves así, no sé. Pero no hay nada tan cruel como un cobarde, y la próxima matanza superará probablemente todo lo imaginable. ¿Qué tal si pedimos? Me muero de hambre

La versión cinematográfica de este guion no corrió demasiada suerte, fue injustamente minusvalorada. ¿Qué otra prueba es necesaria para comprobar la veracidad de ese nuestro endeble corazón lo que nos hace cerrar los ojos a todo eso? Las películas pesimistas y descarnadas normalmente no tienen una acogida demasiado amplia. Por otro lado sí que es cierto que no se trata de un título redondo, y leyendo este guion se comprende lo que no funciona en la pantalla. La parte central de la narración, dónde hay una serie de desencadenantes dramáticos, no resulta muy fluida, tampoco tiene demasiado garra a pesar de los esfuerzos por espectacularizar las escenas que suponen los giro dramáticos. Es obvio que McCarthy se siente más cómodo en los parlamentos filosóficos de los personajes que no en la acción fílmica. Cita sin pedantería tanto a Antonio Machado como fuentes filosóficas, sin descuidar de esbozar un mundo machista y brutal, que es para depredadores que han asumido ese talante misantrópico por tal de perseguir y adorar al Dios-dinero.

[AndreaMarretti · Rating 4 out of 5]

...si fa presto a dire "recensione" quando si parla di McCarthy.
È bellissimo, profondissimo e disturbante, con dialoghi che valgono sempre il libro, al solito.
In effetti non mi è neanche chiarissimo COSA abbia fatto il procuratore per trovarsi lì dove si trova ma immagino dovrò procedere con la rilettura.

[Josh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hard to know what to say on this one. McCarthy had already no doubt mastered the leverage of violence to bring his issues to the surface. Not to be confused with Tarantino (which will get done more than once especially after this movie comes out at your local 16 screen theater) his delivery of brutal blows is not purely for spectator value and entertainment so much as to drive some theme that you can't immediately put your finger on. The same things seem to be batting around in his head as were there in the beginning with "The Orchard Keeper" almost 50 years ago, but very few of us could read this work alongside that one and bridge the two together without the foreknowledge that they were penned by the same man.

This is a modern day look (hard to believe that modern day could be as dysfunctional as the stages he set through his earlier books) at the slippage of society into an ever increasing populous of depravity. There are the recurring themes of evil and mankind's attraction to it. There are questions raised in regards to God's existence, His interaction with mankind, and His ability/willingness to help or not help provide an escape. He seems to dare us to think about what any person is really willing to give up to experience love (or in the case of this book equally lust- again, I think showing his view that we're on the downward spiral). My view is that McCarthy thinks our time here on earth is waning.

For me, this one didn't hit as many spots in terms of a deep read. To be fair, most surely this one was written to hit its mark on the screen and not the page. Other McCarthy adaptations were written more as literary works without much regard to how they might play out in film (The Road, All The Pretty Horses). Consequently, I enjoyed reading those more than watching them.

This one has an opportunity to deliver McCarthy's psyche through film, but watcher beware.......it's going to take guts and stamina to make it through while still seeing his points. This one isn't a love story disguised as a shoot em up with a few references to the drug world. Quite the opposite, it's more a shoot em down centered on the drug world with a few references to the human condition. This is Cornac McCarthy meets Breaking Bad (or perhaps vice versa, I'm not sure). It is Violent, it's disturbing, and I can't decide if it makes me like McCarthy more or less (and he's one of my favorites).

[♥ Sandi ❣ · Rating 3 out of 5]

An early work of McCarthy's. I read it as a play.

On the border of Texas and Mexico a trial lawyer gets involved in a drug smuggling ring that is going bad.

Read as a play it gave over to a lot of scene changes. Characters were known only by first name. This was an earlier work of McCarthy's, which also became a movie in 2013.

[Tabuyo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Aunque la historia no tiene nada que la haga pasar a la posteridad, me ha parecido entretenida. El hecho de ser un guion de cine (está escrita como si fuera teatro) le resta mucha profundidad a los personajes.
Los cambios de escena se me hicieron algo difusos y me costó centrarme en la trama.
No creo que vea la película porque la historia no me llama nada pero me da que va a ser mucho mejor que el guion.

[Deki Napolju · Rating 3 out of 5]

I itch to get my hands on any new Cormac work as soon as it it's released and this was no exception. I'm not sure though how to rate The Counsellor. I don't read that many screenplays and found myself at times reading it as a novel which is unfair to both author and work. That aside I did find that at times I felt I was reading earlier works by C.Mac, mostly No Country for Old Men. There are the welcome and familiar tricks and punctuation-frugal bleakness but on the most part I felt I was reading something harvested and hen-pecked from prior triumphs. There is also a deep resonance with John Sayles' 2013 film Go For Sisters.

Perhaps the author has earnt his reduced duties. He's eighty now and he hasn't released a novel since 2006. Perhaps we won't be blessed with another. That there is a very sad thing. It may be all plays and screenplays from here on in. Perhaps it's time to re-read his works. Still, he could release a dried turd and I'd be putting in my advance order.

[sch · Rating 1 out of 5]

It's been a year or so since I read through all of McCarthy's published books, and this is by far the worst. Let me enumerate. Vulgar (in the bad sense), weak humor, disjointed plot, all too transparent structural metaphor, dull characters, dialogue often not credible. On the last point, any reader of McCarthy will be able to tell when the diamond dealer stops talking and McCarthy takes over; ditto the villainess Malkina.

Not recommended to anyone without a professional interest in the author.

Very embarrassing sex scenes. This is a bit presumptuous, but perhaps the author is trying to put behind him the Pulitzer and Oprah book club.

[Mientras Leo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Muy irregular, se queda en la superficie de unos personajes que daban mucho más de sí.
Las reflexiones, como siempre, brillantes

[Leo Robertson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Glad to see other McCarthy fans agreeing that this isn't very good...

Having enjoyed The Sunset Limited a lot, I thought I'd give this another try--both the film and reading the screenplay.

It's not quite as bad as I remembered, but fairly close.

What irritates me is that I really want to like it, and the bones of it contain a great story. But too many superfluous scenes with shaggy dog tales with very obscure purpose, and an odd flouting of basic narrative duties, like maybe giving your protagonist a motivation or explaining how main characters met or know each other? Or how they're involved in the main plot? Am I asking for too much? This story is like, apparently.

And I know the guy is a stylist, but people really don't talk like this. You can get away with it if you're only reading it, but when you actually hear it being spoken it's like, "What planet are these people on?"

The pillow talk in particular is just ridiculous. If you put me in a heterosexual love scene and asked me to improv dialogue, it would probably come out as badly hahaha. "Ohh baby baby, I love your feet? Remember that other time we did it? It was, uh... really bad, bad like good though. Baby?"

[Diego Beaumont · Rating 3 out of 5]

Es el guión de una película de alto voltaje. Como mucha carga sexual y de violencia. Entretenido pero no me salvará la vida.

[Buster Lindblad · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kul att läsa något nytt, inte lika kul med ett manus på engelska.
Tyckte att det var en bra handling om än lite svårt att hänga med hela tiden då de va mycket hopp fram o tillbaks. Känns som den skulle göra sig helt okej som en film. Kanske redan finns som film.

[Kern · Rating 4 out of 5]

Felt compelled to check this out after mostly coming around on the film after a recent revisit. Its strengths are almost entirely tied to McCarthy's storytelling, which becomes even more evident after reading the screenplay. A sort of looser, grimly comedic version of No Country for Old Men. If only I could read Malkina's dialogue without picturing Diaz's performance.

[Greg B · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the most succinct description of Cormac McCarthy's worldview we're likely to get. Lean, vicious and dripping with menace. Now I really want to see the movie.

[Kirk Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brutal!!!

[yo JP · Rating 3 out of 5]

Je to taková, co do témat, variace na 'Tahle země není pro starý' (původně taky napsáno jako filmový scénář), ale postrádající jak v aspektu thrilleru, tak v hlubším filozofování a konverzačkách; i když i tady jsou slušně vypointované. Asi nic, co by urazilo, ale všechno je to stejně a lépe zpracováno, ať už byste hledali ve filmech, TV shows, nebo literatuře... takže mi víceméně přišlo, že tohle se svezlo hlavně na tom, jak se po McCarthyho skoku do mainstreamového výsluní najednou objevil / rozhodl / zkrátka napsal scénář, což ale jaksi dovádí jeho "precizní a pomalý, prozaický styl" k jisté filmové uspěchanosti, střihovitosti. Jde vidět, že to pro McCarthyho není úplně něco, čemu by nerozuměl, v čem by plaval, protože jeho příběhy definitivně nepostrádají jistou filmovou dynamiku, ale taky si myslím, že 'Konzultant' je něco, co mu zkrátka nesedí, formálně, v čem úplně neexceluje a tudíž jeho silné stránky až tolik nevyniknou a zapadávají v řidším, méně konzistentním textu.

[Jenny (knasentjej) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nja, det är nu konstaterat. Jag gillar inte att läsa pjäser. Den här är trots allt okej, men inte så mycket mer.