The Counsellor (screenplay)

A tale of greed and betrayal from Cormac McCarthy, the legendary author of No Country for Old Men and The Road.

Brought to the screen by Ridley Scott and starring Michael Fassbender, Penelope Cruz and Brad Pitt, The Counsellor is an original screenplay that delves into the dark world of drug-smuggling across the US-Mexico border.

‘McCarthy has delivered a brutal study in grief’ – Empire, on the film

A man, unnamed, wants to be rich. So entranced is he by this need, and the desire to impress his fiancee, that he works his contacts to become involved in a high-risk game: drug-smuggling across the US-Mexico border.

His contacts in the cocaine trade are mysterious, corrupt and seductive. They speak of a device called ‘the bolito’ which, around the neck of its victim, constricts and decapitates. They warn of the Mexican cartels, whose brutality is without mercy.

And so it is, as the action crosses into Mexico, the Counselor’s life becomes darker, more violent and more sexually disturbing than he had imagined possible. Deft and shocking, The Counsellor is a tale of the treacherous balance between risk and consequence.

Praise for Cormac McCarthy:

‘McCarthy worked close to some religious impulse, his books were terrifying and absolute’ – Anne Enright, author of The Green Road

‘His prose takes on an almost biblical quality, hallucinatory in its effect and evangelical in its power’ – Stephen King, author of the Dark Tower series

‘[I]n presenting the darker human impulses in his rich prose, [McCarthy] showed readers the necessity of facing up to existence’ – Annie Proulx, author of Brokeback Mountain