RIDLEY SCOTT

MOST CELEBRATED Alien (1979), Blade Runner (1982), Thelma & Louise (1991), Gladiator (2000), The Martian (2015)

MOST UNDERRATED THE COUNSELLOR 2013

Boasting a stellar cast (Michael Fassbender, Cameron Diaz, Javier Bardem, Penélope Cruz, Brad Pitt) and marketed as your typical pulse-pounding thriller, The Counsellor wrong-footed critics and audiences alike with its oblique plotting, baroque monologues, dreamlike atmosphere, jolting violence and dirty talk (“the most luscious pussy in all of Christendom”).

“Blah bloody blah” is how Mark Kermode paraphrased the characters’ frequent speechifying on life and purpose, cause and effect, and inescapable consequences. But, like the Coens’ No Country For Old Men, Scott’s bleak thriller captures Cormac McCarthy’s poetic, rough-hewn dialogue, Old Testament morals and savage worldview. No surprise, given McCarthy not only inked the screenplay, but was on set every day too.

The scraps of plot we’re given involve Fassbender’s slick counsellor (he’s never called by name) becoming embroiled in a drug deal on the Tex-Mex border. Everything goes south, but we, like the title character, never learn the whole picture. And don’t expect the (superior) Director’s Cut to fill in the blanks, either – the extra 20 minutes are dedicated to more philosophy and sex, with Scott claiming the theatrical cut was hamstrung by prudish execs. McCarthy agreed, saying, “You get the sense that people who make Hollywood movies have never had sex.”

ALSO UNDERRATED Someone To Watch Over Me (1987),

Kingdom Of Heaven – Director’s Cut (2005)