Disappointing

Rating: 5/10 (24 June 2015)

There's a lot to recommend this movie. The performances are all excellent, in particular those of Paul Giamatti and Rufus Sewell, who clearly relish their succulent roles. The photography is outstanding, justly earning DOP Dick Pope an Oscar nomination. The story is intriguing and well-told by director/writer Neil Burger. By a third of the way through it dawns on you that the political thread of the plot is making a clever comment on the illusory nature of power. But as time passes this promising idea is forsaken, and the whole enterprise reveals itself be a soufflé that in its last five minutes collapses into a soggy disappointment.