Counselor is silly and just plain ridiculous

Liberty Theatre

The Counselor

**

Stars: Michael Fassbender, Penelope Cruz, Cameron Diaz, Javier Bardem, Brad Pitt, Ruben Blades, Rosie Perez.

Director: Ridley Scott.

Rated: R

Showing: Fri-Sat 2:30pm, 6pm, 9pm; Sun 2:30pm, 5:30pm; Mon-Thurs 3:45pm, 7:30pm.

Runtime: 117 minutes

Action, crime, thriller

There are many signs that The Counselor is a ridiculous movie: the pseudo-intellectual philosophy spouted by various characters, including the leader of a Mexican drug cartel; Javier Bardem’s fright-wig hair; Cameron Diaz’s evil eyeliner, one of the primary identifying factors of her bad-girl character. But my favourites are the cheetahs.

Diaz plays a predatory blond named Malkina who has two cheetahs for pets. She decks them out in fancy collars and loves to watch them chase down and shred jackrabbits in the high desert of El Paso. Her admiring if somewhat clownish lover (Bardem) makes drinks and looks on in bemusement. If the eyeliner didn’t clue you in to her motivations, the cheetahs will.

The Counselor is more Wild Things than No Country for Old Men, with which it shares a border-town setting. But at least it knew what it was. This is a silly, affected, self-important movie. 

Neptune Theatre

Escape Plan

**

Stars: Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, 50 Cent. 

Director: Mikael Håfström. 

Rated: PG-15

Showing: Fri-Sat 7:30pm; 

Sun 5:30pm; Mon-Thurs 7:30pm.

Runtime: 116 minutes

Action, mystery, thriller.

Stallone was always a better actor than Schwarzenegger. That burning question, for those old enough to have asked it and deluded enough to have never figured it out, is answered once and for all in Escape Plan, a vintage prison escape movie in the classic Sly and/or Arnold mould. 

Speciality Theatre

Gravity

*****

Stars: Sandra Bullock, George Clooney. 

Director: Alfonso Caurón

Rated: PG-13

Showing: Fri-Sat 6:15pm,  & 9:15 (all 3D); Sun 2pm (2D), 4:30 (3D), 7pm (3D); Mon-Tues 7pm (2D); Wed-Thurs 

7pm (3D) 

Runtime: 90 minutes

Drama, sci-fi, thriller

Gravity is one of the few films that demands to be seen in 3-D IMAX.

Yet it also has an emotional and spiritual depth that, like 127 Hours, another film about man vs. isolation, transcends what might at first seem a gimmicky plot device. 

Captain Phillips

****

Stars: Tom Hanks, Barkhad Abdi, Barkhad Abdirahman. 

Director: Paul Greengrass

Rated: PG-13

Showing: Fri-Sat 2:30pm,  6pm, 9pm; Sun 2pm, 4:45pm, 7:30pm; Mon-Tues 

6pm, 8:30pm; Wed-Thurs 

2:30pm, 6pm, 8:30pm.

Runtime: 135 minutes

Biography, crime, drama 

It wasn’t that long ago and we remember how it turned out. So there’s no way that Captain Phillips, the movie about the 2009 pirate attack on the M.V. Maersk Alabama, should be as surprising and entertaining a sea tale as it is.

But this thrilling retelling was directed by Paul (United 93) Greengrass, an unfussy director with a talent for tension. 

Southside Theatre

Call 297-2821 for showtimes.

All reviews MCT unless stated