Cormac McCarthy's masterful screenwriting debut for The Counselor is met the superb acting skills of a bevy of A-listers, particularly Cameron Diaz, who stole the show.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author who wrote the contemporary classics No Country for Old Men, Blood Meridian and The Road, engineered a compelling, disturbing tale that only could only be mustered by him.

Michael Fassbender, known only as "the Counselor" in the film, is invited to invest in a cross-border drug deal by one of his clients, Reiner (Javier Bardem). Seduced by the idea of easy cash, the gullible and corrupt lawyer agrees. Little does he know that his life with his perfect fiancé (Penelope Cruz) and his plum existence would be upturned once the aforementioned drugs are stolen, and the Counselor catches the blame. Then, horrible things happen.

The horror within the film blows hot and cold. Cold: the chilling displays the guttural, human interactions in the raw. Hot: the jarring moments that spike your blood pressure and leave you sweating as you rock on the tip of your seat. Diaz is especially guilty of getting hearts racing, as she plays the dangerously seductive girlfriend of Reiner, Malkina. She is hypersexual, unapologetic, and she lacks humor and moral empathy. Pathological, sociopathic, calculated, and draped in expensive clothing and jewels, she is meant appear as an untamable wild thing, and she does that well. She uses her venomous sex appeal to strike whenever she deems it fit. The role that was meant to go Angelina Jolie was perfected under the prowess of Cameron Diaz.

The film paints a picture of good and evil in a dark world, two-tier realities that flatten into one and individuals are swallowed whole by circumstances. As Fox News said, "The Counselor" examines the human condition under a magnifying glass, but in his twisted form of anthropology, that magnifying glass burns his characters like ants."

Brad Pitt, Rosie Perez, Natalie Dormer, Edgar Ramirez, Bruno Ganz, Ruben Blades, John Leguizamo, Fenando Cayo Dean Norris, and Carlos Julio Molina also appear in the film.