The Virtuoso

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Nick Stagliano directs. Frank Prinzi behind the camera. Brooke Blair scores. James LeSage cuts. Produced in United States of America. Dialogue in English.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

• 1Released 5 years ago.
• 2Directed by Nick Stagliano, shot by Frank Prinzi. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
• 3Original score by Brooke Blair. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
• 4Editor James LeSage shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
• 5Anthony Hopkins and Anson Mount and Abbie Cornish carry the top of the cast.
• 6Marketing tagline: "Every betrayal begins with trust.".
• 7IMDB entry: tt4136456 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.

The technical file

Cinematography

Frank Prinzi

Original score

Brooke Blair

Editing

James LeSage

Production design

Norman Dodge

Costume design

Rita Squitiere

Runtime

110 min · 1h 50m

Aspect ratio (typical)

1.37:1 (Academy)

Status

Released

Original language

EN

Certification (US)

R

IMDB

The Virtuoso (2021) ↗

Also by

Nick Stagliano

• 
  The Florentine

  1999 · ★ 5.7
• 
  Good Day for It

  2011 · ★ 5.5
• 
  Home of Angels

  1994

Stills · wallpapers

Selected frames

Full-resolution frames — open one to save it as a wallpaper.

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Trailers & featurettes

Watch the pieces

• 

  ▶
  Official Trailer

  Trailer · Official

Community reviews

What people are saying

• JPV8522021-05-11
  ★ 5/10

  Has some interesting elements but "The Virtuoso" (how Anson Mount's character is credited) is kind of an idiot for being some kind of world-class hitman (not sure why he'd take an assignment to some tiny town with no name or picture of his target), plus his monotone narration can lull you to sleep if you're not careful. Anthony Hopkins was mailing it in as most stars of his ilk tend to do with these direct-to-video films (and majority of scenes take place in a dark office), but nice to see Abbie Cornish in all her glory... IDK, it's not at all terrible but doesn't make a whole lot of sense either. I can see what the writers and director was going for, just didn't work all that well. 2.5/5

  Read full review ↓
• Wuchak2021-11-15
  ★ 6/10

  “Are you an assassin?” “I’m a soldier.” “You’re neither.” A professional assassin (Anson Mount) is given an ambiguous gig in a small town in the Poconos. Can he get the job done with as little collateral damage as possible? Anthony Hopkins plays his boss, Abbie Cornish a waitress and David Morse a deputy. "The Virtuoso" (2021) is a neo-noir crime drama/thriller with a Tarantino bent. Films with criminal protagonists don’t usually interest me unless there’s angle of redemption or some other intriguing aspect. “Death Wish,” “The Punisher” and “Taken” are exceptions because the central character isn’t really a criminal, but rather a (anti)hero on a mission of justice denied by the system. This is a well-made neo-noir with an interesting second person narration. It doesn’t focus on eye-rolling action scenes and explosions every five minutes, but rather the assassin figuring out the mission, executing it (no pun intended) and surviving. Unfortunately the gross contrivances of the script emerge in the last act and it’s impossible to suspend disbelief, as they say. I get the message of the film, but what do I care? Assassins who heartlessly murder people simply to make a good living are criminal scumbags and should be executed themselves. Still, the heavy mood is to die for, the psychology of a professional assassin is well written, Mount makes for a great masculine protagonist, Abbie is jaw-dropping in a curvy way, the second-person narration is effective and the locations & score are superb. The movie runs 1 hour, 50 minutes, and was shot in Scranton, Pennsylvania, in the Poconos, as well as Santa Ynez, California, which is about an hour’s drive west of Malibu. GRADE: B-/C+

  Read full review ↓
• tmdb280390232022-08-28
  ★ 1/10

  There isn't the slightest trace of virtuosity here — or, for that matter, of competence —, whether in front of or behind the camera, except for what Anthony Hopkins brings from his own unlimited personal reserve. Contrary to what one might believe, the title does not refer to Hopkins’s character, but to Anson Mount (The Virtuoso ends up coming across as a nickname the character is too dumb to realize is ironic), a professional assassin who offsets the laconic nature of his profession with an endless and soporific narration that sounds as if he were reading long passages from Murder for Dummies; even a hypothetical viewer who has never seen a Hitman Movie like this would find this excess of exposure overwhelming. Perhaps the movie should be called The Theoretician, because all of Mount’s encyclopedic knowledge is of little use to him in practice, an area in which he proves to be rather inept. Consider a job which must be made to look like an accident; his approach is to cause a literal traffic accident, and hope for the best (or, from the victim’s point of view, the worst). Considering this haphazard method, it’s no surprise that an unrelated third party becomes a bonus kill for Mount — although he is inexplicably upset by this turn of events. Why should this bother him? Killing is killing, and morally there is little or no difference between killing someone for money and killing them through negligence; I can only conclude that what bugs Mount is having killed someone for free. In any case, Mount’s minor crisis of conscience prompts The Mentor (Hopkins) to tell him an autobiographical story about “following orders” and “obeying his superiors” as a young soldier in the army; it’s a clichéd speech, but Hopkins effortlessly elevates the material and makes it easily the best thing in the entire movie. Then again, it takes but a fraction of Hopkins’s considerable talent to elevate this dumbass script above the abject mediocrity that is its natural state. Consider the crux of the plot: The Virtuoso gets a note from the Mentor concerning his latest assignment that offers no other info than a date and time (and the words “White Rivers” which could be the name of a person or a place; the answer, however, turns out to be something much more inane). Mount arrives on the scene confused as to who the target is, which results in the death of two or three people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time; this not only goes against everything — and its a lot — he has told us about “precision” and “perfection”, but it also makes him look like a hypocrite, since this time the "collateral damage" does not faze him in the least. Moreover, Mount never for a second finds all these unnecessary complications suspicious, nor does it ever occur to him that if someone really wanted someone else dead, they wouldn’t make a riddle about the whole thing.

  Read full review ↓

Production companies

Who made it

• 

  Lionsgate

  US

• NA

  NAZZ Productions

Key crew

• CastingStephanie Holbrook
• EditorJames LeSage
• CastingDiane Heery
• Costume DesignRita Squitiere
• CastingJason Loftus
• Art DirectionTimothy W. Stevens
• First Assistant DirectorKarim Nabil
• Script SupervisorBruce Resnik
• Production DesignNorman Dodge
• ProducerNick Stagliano
• StuntsJenna Hellmuth
• Stunt DoubleAshley Pynn
• Set DecorationDavid Butler
• Unit ManagerBrandon Amelotte
• Production SupervisorSteven Nguyen
• Sound MixerWesley Claggett
• Costume SupervisorAlison Pieroni
• First Assistant EditorBart Keller
• Location ManagerJustin Hank
• Assistant Location ManagerLiam Baldwin
• Music SupervisorAbe Bradshaw
• Production CoordinatorHeather Backlas

Release history · US

When it landed

• Theatrical (limited)2021-04-30R
• Digital2021-04-30R
• Physical2021-05-04R

Also known as

International titles

• Le virtuoseCA
• 히트맨: 코드네임 버튜소KR
• 더 버츄오소KR
• エージェント：0 漆黒の暗殺者JP