Georgetown (2019)

Georgetown is the kind of sleek, adult crime drama that hooks you less with action than with the intoxicating spectacle of a man talking his way into rooms he has no business entering. Christoph Waltz, directing himself with sly confidence, turns Ulrich Mott into a mesmerizing contradiction—charming, ridiculous, and faintly alarming—while Vanessa Redgrave gives the film its aristocratic gravity and Annette Bening supplies the cool, watchful skepticism that keeps the tension humming. The vibe is Washington cocktail-gloss with a creeping sense that every smile is a strategy, building toward unease rather than sensationalism. It’s modestly scaled and dialogue-driven, so if you want a flashy thriller you may find it restrained, but if you like performances that let you feel the con tightening one polite conversation at a time, it’s a delicious watch.

Georgetown is clearly aiming for a slick, true-crime-adjacent character study about a charming grifter worming his way into Washington power circles, with Christoph Waltz leaning hard into the performative eccentricity. The problem is the film often feels thin on dramatic fuel: it circles the same tensions without building enough momentum, and the tone can come off oddly flat for material that should crackle with menace. Waltz is watchable but the shtick can start to wear, and the payoff may leave you feeling like you sat through a long setup for a resolution that doesn’t fully land. If you like slow, talk-heavy portraits of manipulation and you’re here for Bening and Redgrave’s presence more than a satisfying crime-thriller arc, you’ll find some value; if you want a sharper mystery or a more gripping escalation, this likely isn’t for you.