I was not prepared. I thought I was prepared, but I was not. The Counselor is a film directed by Ridley Scott and stars Michael Fassbender, Brad Pitt, Penelope Cruz, Javier Bardem and Cameron Diaz. It is written by Cormac McCarthy. McCarthy is a Pulitzer Prize winner who wrote The Road and No Country for Old Men. If you’re familiar with those works then you probably understand why this film is getting panned.

The Counselor is really McCarthy’s film, and how he roped all this talent into it I don’t know. McCarthy is known for writing especially bleak and hopeless stories, and that’s what The Counselor is. The film follows the titular Counselor (Michael Fassbender), who is never referred to by an actual name. That doesn’t stop him from feeling like a real character, and every character is clearly defined and their roles made abundantly clear thanks to the fantastic writing, casting and direction. Not a single person involved in this movie is phoning it in, and Fassbender especially makes you feel terrible for the Counselor. That’s not to say the Counselor is a good guy, the film is unabashed in showing that its characters are not good people. They got in the drug trade out of greed, and they all know that they will not get a happy ending. The characters are such terrible people that the movie would fall apart if the cast was not so damn good.

I cannot stress how important it is to go see this movie with the right frame of mind. It was not marketed especially well and looks to the public to be a thriller about drug trafficking, and many critics didn’t go into it with the right expectations. Their criticisms are valid, if this movie was a thriller. It isn’t. This movie is McCarthy doing what he does best, exploring the dark underside of humanity in all its detail.

This is a challenging movie; it is not lighthearted. You will not leave the theater feeling good, you’ll feel beaten down and hopeless. I can’t even truly describe it because the film doesn’t even behave like a film. It behaves more like a word for word adaptation of a book McCarthy wrote. The imagery and dialogue is structured in such a way that works on paper but doesn’t always translate well when it’s spoken. What this means is that the imagery is vivid and every line is just dripping with meaning, and because it’s McCarthy all of this is in the service of highlighting the worst parts of humanity and the horrible, disgusting things we do to one another. I knew this going in. I had an inkling of what I was stepping into and yet there were still parts of the movie when I knew exactly what was going to happen that still made me cringe, gasp and avert my eyes at some of the frankly shocking things that unfold. This movie can only be described as a tragedy that doesn’t pull any punches as you watch these people’s lives just obliterated in the worst ways.

I can’t say I enjoyed The Counselor, but I can’t say I regret watching it either. It’s such a bleak, soul crushing, horrifying look at the darkest side of the drug trade and the random senseless death that follows that I can’t say it’s bad because it portrays that incredibly well. The people who are going to like it will walk into it knowing exactly what to expect and that is why they’ll like it. This movie wants to break you, it does not want you to enjoy it, and so I will say this: if you liked The Road or if you’re a fan of McCarthy’s novels, this movie is for you. McCarthy is just doing what he’s good at and that is making the unprepared as uncomfortable as possible while experiencing his work. The Counselor is definitely an experience I can’t say I’ve ever had at a movie. It is sick and depraved at times, but I’ve got to say it works. It works. If you do your research and prepare yourself I think you can like this movie, but this is not a movie you see lightly. Be prepared people.