When a film is created by an equally renowned cast and crew, it can be difficult to identify the most notable contributors. In praising or blaming, we often focus on the director or the actors. In this instance, however, it is the screenwriter’s efforts that command our interest and ultimately reorient what could have been a straightforward narrative.

It’s perhaps no surprise that Cormac McCarthy’s name has strategically accompanied Ridley Scott’s in the publicity for his new film, The Counselor, often sharing equal billing with the director. The celebrated author of such novels as The Road (2006) is an experienced screenwriter, with The Gardener’s Son (first published in 1996) screening on PBS in the late 1970s, and No Country For Old Men actually beginning life as a screenplay.