There's a mystery at the heart of "The Counselor," and it's why Hollywood continues to worship Cormac McCarthy. Because, when you really look at them, the stories of his that have reached the screen are just tricked-up genre tales, wrapped in fake profundity and decorated with ribbons of ponderous, philosophizing dialogue.

 

Yes, "No Country for Old Men" was terrific - although much of that was due to the setting, the Coens' stripped-down staging and fine performances (including that of Javier Bardem's outrageous wig).

But "All the Pretty Horses" was a slumbering Western, and "The Road" just one more post-apocalyptic, here-come-the-cannibals movie. And if you saw HBO's version of his two-hander, "The Sunset Limited" - well, my sympathies.

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Unfair, you say. McCarthy only wrote the books, not the Hollywood adaptations. Except he did write that "Sunset Limited" script. And now here comes "The Counselor," which he not only wrote specifically for the movies but helped produce.

And it is some kind of car crash.

It is full of beautiful people. Lord, is it full of beautiful people - Michael Fassbender as a crooked lawyer, Penelope Cruz as his naive fiance, Brad Pitt as a cowboy criminal, Bardem again as a shady clubowner and Cameron Diaz as the femme fatale every story like this needs.

And, it is directed by Ridley Scott, who knows how to make everything look sexy. He's kept busy here, too.

The film starts with a raunchy bed scene between Fassbender and Cruz, and not only puts Diaz in a precariously draped towel, but then has her indulge in some auto erotica.

No, not that. She literally makes love to a car, or rather a car's windshield. And believe me, you don't want to know, even if you think you do.

But the story - which involves a drug cartel, a get-rich-quick scheme, a double-cross and a lot of bloody reprisals - doesn't make a lick of sense. It's meant to be tricky and clever (Pitt's character even deliberately quotes a line from "Body Heat," as if to promise all sorts of nasty pleasures). But all that follows is confusion.

Scott, who has always had a great eye, has never had a fine sense of story; the film seems an hour longer than it is, with too many scenes that go nowhere. Fassbender's character, for example, doesn't just present Cruz with an engagement ring; we first have to follow him to Amsterdam, to watch him pick out the precise stone.

But - why, exactly? Well, so we can get an overly stylized lecture from a diamond dealer on how these beautiful objects are in fact mistakes, how it's is the flaws that make diamonds interesting. (Write that metaphor down - it'll be on the quiz later).

Except this movie's flawed characters aren't interesting, just loaded with painful significance. They walk around like symbols. (The Counselor, for example, apparently has no name - he's just "The Counselor.") They pronounce profundities like "The truth has no temperature." They have sex with cars, or their body doubles do. (Sorry, I'm still trying to get that one out of my mind.)

Still, the pretty people seem to be having a lot of fun here, particularly with the dialogue, which can sound awfully literary if you're not.

Diaz sports a leopard-print tattoo that curls down the small of her back (please, nobody tell Snooki), and Bardem, once again, rocks some hideous hair. Cruz and Pitt have little to do beyond looking beautiful. Fassbender, however, just looks lost. And who could blame him? Because as a character, the Counselor is never more than a dumb cypher.

There is one bright criminal in all of this, though, and that's whoever cut the trailers for this thing and somehow made it look fun. It's the clearest, cleverest act of fraud since the last Wall Street scandal, and one I can only hope audiences don't succumb to.

THE COUNSELOR

1 star, out of 5

Snapshot: Director Ridley Scott and novelist Cormac McCarthy -- making his screenwriting debut -- team up for an impressively cast thriller about a lawyer whose world spins out of control after he dips his toe into the drug trade -- and then finds out there's really no such thing as "dipping one's toe" into the drug trade.

What works: The pretty people seem to be having a lot of fun here, particularly with the dialogue, which can sound awfully literary if you're not.

What doesn't: This movie's flawed characters aren't interesting, just loaded with painful significance. They walk around like symbols.

Cast: Michael Fassbender, Penelope Cruz, Brad Pitt, Cameron Diaz, Javier Bardem. Director: Ridley Scott. Rating: R, for graphic violence, some grisly images, strong sexual content and language. Running time: 1 hour 57 minutes. Where: Find New Orleans showtimes.