Time, job markets and Elon Musk have made Bentley Little’s “The Consultant” even more of an allegory than it was when the novel was first published in 2015, although its vision of workplace horror is probably timeless: In the wake of a violent upheaval at a midsize tech company, a “consultant” arrives, moves into the boss’s office, starts trimming the staff, selling the furniture, reshaping a business he knows nothing about and warning that the end is near.
No employee has the authority to throw him out—or, for that matter, the courage.
Having Christoph Waltz play the ostensible villain in writer-developer Tony Basgallop ’s eight-part adaptation of Mr. Little’s book is to make use of the actor’s unnervingly precise Teutonic presence, which has been a mischievous and elastic feature in such films as “Inglourious Basterds” and “Django Unchained” (both of which won him Oscars).
His intent can be good or bad, but is always vaguely ironic.
As such, it is a mixed blessing in what is essentially a mystery in slow motion that keeps tilting toward comedy.