8 Movies From 2013 That Completely Went Over Audiences' Heads

4. The Counselor

Ridley Scott's team-up with legendary author Cormac McCarthy proved to be one of the year's most derided films, flopping at the domestic box office, earning a rare D cinemascore, and posting 34% on Rotten Tomatoes. A bizarre screenplay, over the top acting, and several long spur-of-the-moment monologues teamed up to befuddle just about everyone who saw it. To be fair, The Counselor is not the masterpiece a lot of people were hoping for, and in all actuality it doesn't even necessarily reach "very good" status, but in no way was it as bad as people made it out to be. The Counselor is the result of two artists who prefer to convey ideas stylistically: Scott's visuals have always been the best part of his movies, while McCarthy's rich prose deals more with character's inner monologues than plot devices and character-to-character interaction. The result of the two working together is a movie that is probably too blunt with its message and too sparse on plot, but nevertheless gorgeous, stylish, and completely original. The biggest mistake The Counselor made, at least in terms of trying to achieve widespread success, is that it's such a cold, depressing movie. It is arguably the most hopeless movie of 2013, ending in utter defeat for all but the most unlikeable character, and while it will make for fascinating analysis in retrospect, its failure with audiences was all but a guarantee. Clumsy in parts, and definitely unconventional, The Counselor will be a fascinating movie to keep track of, in terms of whether or not the critical consensus surrounding it changes over time. Since Ridley Scott's filmography will be studied for as long as movies are popular because of Alien, Blade Runner, and Gladiator, The Counselor definitely has a chance to stick around in moviegoers memory for a long time.