Reader, you have been lied to! Film history is littered with unfairly maligned classics, whether critics were too eager to review the making of rather than the finished product, or they suffered from underwhelming ad campaigns or general disinterest. Let’s revise our takes on some of these films from wrongheaded to the correct opinion . When Ridley Scott ‘s “ Blade Runner ” was released in the summer of 1982, it met with lukewarm responses from audiences and, though there were outliers, largely mixed reviews.
(Pauline Kael’s snide dismissal stuck in Scott ‘s craw to the point that he continued to quote it in interviews 40 years later.) Scott had the last laugh, as it only took around 10 years for everyone to come around and acknowledge “Blade Runner” as a classic, and given how wrong the critics were initially one might think they would be careful about underestimating Scott again. Yet when Scott made what was arguably his best film since “Blade Runner” (or at least since “Thelma and Louise”) in 2013, history repeated itself as the director gave the world another audacious masterpiece — and was once again met largely with indifference.
That film was “ The Counselor ,” and like “Blade Runner” it came and went from theaters with little fanfare, barely covering its modest $25 million cost in spite of a cast that included Michael Fassbender, Cameron Diaz, Javier Bardem, Penélope Cruz, and, reuniting with Scott for the first time since his star-.
