The Counselor

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The Coen Brothers took celebrated novelist Cormac McCarthy down an artfully dark pathway in their adaptation of No Country for Old Men, but one can only imagine that Ridley Scott, working from a script by that same great author, will hue closer to a straight-ahead violent exposé into the nature of masculinity seeking to assert itself in the rising tide of change. Expect a bit more flash from Scott than you might get from, say, Michael Mann (who travels down the same roads), especially since The Counselor packs real heat in terms of its first-rate cast: Michael Fassbender, Javier Bardem, Brad Pitt, Penelope Cruz and Cameron Diaz. Explosive, right? Opens wide Oct. 25. (R) Not screened in time for review