The Consultant (2023) * * (Streaming on Amazon Prime)

Starring:  Christoph Waltz, Nat Wolff, Brittany O'Grady, Gloria John, Aimee Carrero, Michael Charles Vaccaro, Brian Yoon

Despite the charmingly evil presence of Christoph Waltz as the titular consultant who shows up the day after a video gaming software company loses its founder to take over the reins of the struggling enterprise, The Consultant misses opportunities to provide oodles of workplace satire.   Instead, it concentrates on who Regus Patoff (Waltz) is, what he does, how he came to run the office, and whether he even sleeps or goes to the bathroom.   The answers are provided, but long after we stopped caring, and the payoff is unworthy of the buildup.   

As The Consultant begins, the gaming company run by Mr. Sang (Yoon), who is inexplicably murdered by a child in his office and shortly after, Regus arrives to cheerfully announce he is assuming control.  Through flashbacks, we learn Sang's company was about to go bust, and Sang chooses to save it by making a deal with the enigmatic Patoff.   What type of deal?  Patoff will take over the company and steer it in the right direction only after Sang is dead.   Since Sang can only afford to stay in business another few months, it is apparent he must die soon in order for his company and legacy to be saved. 

Regus Patoff isn't a guy who shakes hands and kisses babies.  He isn't running for public office, and threatens to fire any remote workers who don't show up to the office in-person in exactly one hour.  Regus mercilessly slashes the red ink, forces a programmer to take a sponge bath because he reeks, and calls his assistant at three in the morning to get into the office pronto.  Who is Regus?  Where did he come from?  How did he come into power so quickly?   These are questions asked by Craig (Wolff) and Elaine (O'Grady), who, like everyone else at the company, should be spending their time looking for other jobs or high-tailing it out of such a toxic environment.   Nope, they stay, if only because The Consultant would be over after two episodes if they didn't.   The workers' behavior is as baffling as Regus'.

We go along with the suspense for a couple episodes before we start losing patience.   Even the inhuman Regus is more interesting than the rest of the group combined.   Maybe because Waltz has made it his stock and trade to play such gleeful malevolence so effectively.  He's as impeccably groomed as ever, and seemingly has nothing but suits in his wardrobe, if he even has a closet or a home where a closet would be.  When we do learn what makes Regus tick (both literally and figuratively), we are underwhelmed.   The office of the 21st century is ripe for satire even though we had already had nine seasons of The Office.   The Consultant chooses to go the horror route and it isn't the right choice.