Mark Reviews Movies: THE VIRTUOSO

Follow on Facebook | Follow on Twitter | Become a Patron

Review by Mark Dujsik | April 29, 2021

Our assassin protagonist asserts that he's a "virtuoso" in the art of professional murder, but in trying to make its plot as twisty as possible, The Virtuoso mostly disproves that belief. By the end, the killer has dispatched more wrong people than correct targets, made a mess of every one of his plans, and missed or ignored some pretty obvious clues as to the truth of what's happening on his latest job. If he's the best, we'd hate to think of the devastation that would be caused by the worst.

Our unnamed virtuoso, played by Anson Mount, does get one job right. In the prologue, during which screenwriter James C. Wolf and director Nick Stagliano establish the protagonist's running narration of his methods, the assassin takes out a mobster with a sniper rifle, slowly collects his equipment, and gets away before the cops can even arrive at the scene. Following that sequence, there's nothing but mistake after unforced error after bad decision.

We don't get to know the assassin, of course, except through his dry narration (in which he distances himself from his actions by speaking of himself in the second person) and scenes of him alone in his cabin in the woods. There, he practices facial expressions in the mirror—a forced smile that might make him seem like less of a threat—and tends to a stray dog, which means he must have a heart beneath the stoic visage and the career of murder.

His contact/mentor is played by Anthony Hopkins, who has little to do here after a monologue about his time with the protagonist's father in Vietnam (Hopkins sells the scene, even if he sounds as if he's trying to recall his lines or reading prompts just off screen). One of the mentor's assignments has the virtuoso killing a businessman, making it look like an accident. The result is a payoff of questionable physics (A car crashes into a parked RV and causes a most impressively unlikely explosion) and the fiery death of an innocent bystander, whose immolation and screams of torment both are undermined by the ludicrous setup and serve as a running image/sound of the assassin's guilt.

The primary plot involves the virtuoso's next job, which sends him to a diner in a quiet town (which seems to have an actual population of five—four of whom end up dead or dying by the finale), searching for someone or something called "White Rivers." At the diner, the killer encounters a waitress, played by Abbie Cornish, and two possible suspects: a lone man, played by Eddie Marsan, and one he dubs Handsome Johnnie (Richard Brake), who's having a meal with a local woman, played by Diora Baird. Whatever was supposed to happen at the restaurant doesn't, because a local Sheriff's deputy, played by David Morse, arrives and spends a bit too much time there.

The casting here is pretty impressive, especially considering that, save for Mount and Cornish, none of these actors has much to do but to appear threatening and eventually get into a standoff with the protagonist. The virtuoso goes after each of these men, hoping for information about "White Rivers," and proceeds to bungle a non-lethal drugging, a home invasion, and a routine traffic stop.

Every so often, he also interacts with the waitress (Cornish is quietly and appropriately sexy in a role that only requires that quality), a mysterious woman who definitely possesses some secret about something or other. Our assassin suspects this, then forgets it, then knows it for sure, and then, for some unknowable reason, forgets everything he has learned again. Their final scenes together make little sense, even when the truth is finally revealed (She has no reason to do what she does, and he should definitely know that).

Wolf's screenplay tries so hard to distract us from the truth, to give the protagonist a lot to do, and to make all of these characters a potential threat/target that the result is overly convoluted. It doesn't help that we're always—simply by means of dropped clues (which the assassin seems to notice but with which he does nothing) and the process of elimination—a step or two ahead of the virtuoso, leaving us amused with his constant ineptitude.

It's the screenplay that gets most of this wrong, of course, but all of those faults and failures in logic transfer to the main character. The Virtuoso doesn't give us a chance to believe that this guy is any bit as good as he says he is, as a dumb thriller makes for a dumb character—and vice versa.

Back to Home

Buy Related Products

Buy the DVD

Buy the Blu-ray