Prime Video’s The Consultant wants to be a tense corporate thriller about a mysterious outsider who takes over a failing video game company. It mostly succeeds on the level of performance, thanks to Christoph Waltz as the titular Regus Patoff, but stumbles badly on the writing. The result is a show that feels smarter than its script, and that gap between Waltz’s intelligence and the material around him is the whole story.
Waltz plays Patoff as a man who arrives at CompWare, a struggling mobile gaming company in downtown Los Angeles, after the murder of its CEO. He’s a consultant who promises to fix the company, but his methods are strange and his motives are opaque. The premise is simple and effective: a stranger walks into a workplace and starts making decisions nobody can follow. The problem is that the show never quite decides whether it wants to be a horror movie, a comedy, or a drama about workplace dysfunction.
Trailer, via Prime Video.
Regus Patoff and His Arrivals
Waltz carries the show. He plays Patoff as a man who is always two steps ahead, always smiling, and always a little unsettling. His entrance is deliberate and theatrical, and he moves through the office like he owns it. The other actors play off him with varying degrees of success, but Waltz is the constant. He’s the reason the show works at all.
Patoff’s arrival is the engine of the plot. He takes over the company after the CEO’s death, and nobody knows what he wants. The show spends a lot of time showing Patoff’s meetings, his lunches, and his late-night phone calls. The mystery of his intentions drives the early episodes, and it’s a credit to Waltz that the audience stays curious even when the writing stops being clever.
The Employees of CompWare
The supporting cast is a mix of talented young actors doing the best they can with weak material. Nat Wolff plays Craig Horne, a junior employee who is clearly uncomfortable with Patoff’s methods. Brittany O’Grady plays Elaine Hayman, and Aimee Carrero plays Patti. These three form the core of the resistance to Patoff’s takeover, but their arcs are thin and their motivations are vague.
Craig is the closest thing the show has to a protagonist. He sees something wrong with Patoff’s plans and tries to stop them. Elaine and Patti are less developed, and their roles tend to be reactive rather than proactive. The show sets up a trio of employees who should be the heart of the story, but it never gives them enough to do.
The Writing Problem
The biggest problem is the writing. The pacing is uneven, and the dialogue is often clunky. The show tries to build suspense by withholding information, but it also explains too much too soon. The result is a show that feels both slow and rushed at the same time.
The show’s central trick is the mystery of Patoff’s intentions. It works for a while, but the show doesn’t have the patience to sustain it. By the middle of the season, the show shifts into a different gear that doesn’t fit the tone it established earlier. The shift is jarring, and it breaks the spell the show had built.
Tone Problems
The tone is the show’s biggest weakness. It’s a thriller that wants to be a comedy, and the two genres don’t sit well together. There are jokes scattered throughout, but they don’t land. The show is at its best when it’s scary, and at its worst when it’s trying to be funny. The tonal whiplash is exhausting.
The show also leans heavily on visual comedy, with scenes that are meant to be absurd but often feel forced. These moments break the tension the show has spent building, and they leave the viewer confused about what kind of show this is supposed to be. Is it a horror show? A comedy? A drama about corporate power? The answer is yes to all of them, but the show can’t commit to any of them fully.
The Season Structure
The show is structured as a series of escalating crises, each one triggered by Patoff’s actions. The show introduces new characters and new threats with each episode, but it never goes back to clean up the messes it made. The result is a show that feels messy and unfinished.
The show’s structure is episodic, with each episode introducing a new threat or a new revelation. That structure works in a procedural, but it doesn’t work in a thriller that wants to build a sustained sense of dread. The show jumps from one crisis to the next without giving the audience time to breathe or process what happened.
Where It Falls Short
There are a few specific ways the show fails to deliver on its promise:
- The writing is uneven and inconsistent, with some episodes feeling sharp and others feeling like filler.
- The pacing is erratic, with some episodes dragging and others rushing past the important moments.
- The dialogue is often stiff and unnatural, especially in the scenes meant to be tense.
- The show never commits to a single genre, which leaves the audience unsure what they’re watching.
- The supporting cast is underwritten, leaving the show reliant on a single strong performance to carry it.
What Works
Despite its flaws, there are elements of The Consultant that work. The show is at its best when it’s quiet and when it’s focused on Waltz. The show’s strengths are all tied to the performance at its center. Here’s what the show gets right:
- Waltz’s performance as Regus Patoff is consistently excellent, carrying the show through its weakest moments.
- The premise of a mysterious outsider taking over a failing company is simple but effective.
- The show’s visual style is distinctive, with a moody color palette and a claustrophobic sense of space.
- The show’s exploration of corporate power dynamics is occasionally sharp, even if the execution is uneven.
Final Word
The Consultant is a frustrating watch. It has a great premise and a great actor, but it squanders both with a script that can’t decide what kind of show it wants to be. The show is at its best when it’s focused on Waltz, and at its worst when it’s trying to be something else entirely.
The show is a mixed bag, and it’s best enjoyed for what it is: a flawed but watchable thriller with a great lead performance. The show’s ambition exceeds its grasp, and that gap is visible in almost every scene. The show is a reminder that a great performance can carry a bad script for a while, but it can’t carry it forever.
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