Georgetown

The acting is first-rate from start to finish, but it is really Mr. Waltz who keeps the action flowing. Both demon and clown, he’s horrifying, appealing and immensely mesmerizing in a film about the pitfalls that await anyone who falls for charm while ignoring the evils that can sometimes hide behind the facade of disingenuous priorities.

Smart, sly and subtle, Georgetown is in the tradition of Reversal of Fortune, The Informant! and Catch Me If You Can — fictionalized and stylized entertainment based on true crime events.

Never really liked many of Christopher Waltz’s past overly showy turns but then, they were mostly in typically juvenile, show-off Tarantino movies so, had to make some compensations. Here he plays a real-life mythomaniac with a measure of self-doubt and wanna-be super socialite ego – he also directs with a good measure of success. Based on a factual murder and bizarre case of identity crisis, it’s nicely produced, photographed, and features an interesting music score. Redgrave plays a German-born journalist, who’s the subject of his attentions because of her strong social connections within political circles. For some, what’s going on might not always be as focused as it should be (mainly because the main character needed to be fleshed out more thoroughly) but this tends to become a little clearer as it progresses. The Washington ‘set’ comes in for a mostly deserved dressing down - with the parties and often superficial high-flying ‘connections’ but it seems this mismatched ‘husband and wife’ (of convenience) are at times as opportunistic as one another, albeit with some unbecoming results. The unfortunate journalist’s daughter (Bening) has to stand by and witness her mother be used, in all the peculiar set-ups and idiosyncratic extremes by an opportunistic ****, sleeping his way to the top of the social dung heap, without any honesty or moral compass whatsoever.

Christoph Waltz plays a complex, eccentric character who seduces a prominent political DC socialite (Vanessa Redgrave). After they're married, he starts scamming her and her government official friends, while her daughter (Annette Bening) has doubts about his try motives. The narrative moves from crucial past landmarks to present day events that lead up to the investigation into the wife's murder. Waltz's character is certainly enigmatic, but his inscrutable character never evolves. Meanwhile, Redgrave's every moment is compelling. As a director, Waltz manages to tell the story with simple skill, never building any tension with the increasingly implicating events. Even though it's based on actual events, the ending is never fully resolved, but the unique situations and involving performances make it interesting.

It's the kind of serious but broadly appealing, modestly scaled picture that people love to say doesn't exist any more.

The way that the film resolves — or doesn’t — leaves the distinct impression that Waltz simply ran out of interest in this story, which would be an explanation as understandable as it is frustrating.

The cast can only do so much with thin material, and Waltz, duping and swindling grandly, isn’t equipped to make the long con interesting.

It’s downright tricky to maintain the tone Waltz is going for here, but the story is consistently outrageous enough to keep us guessing, and Redgrave goes a long way to offset the lunacy of it all. ... But instead of getting more interesting as it goes on, Waltz’s performance grows tiresome.

Curiously flat ... From the opening few frames through to a clunky introductory sequence, there’s something frustratingly off-balance about Georgetown.

A good example of how even being a good actor, when transitioning to director, you can lose a lot of things, and in this case, surprisingly, Christoph Waltz fails to give his cast interesting things to do. Wasting Annette Bening and Vanessa Redgrave, isn't an everyday deal.