The Virtuoso Review: Limp Assassin Story

The Virtuoso is an awful relic that needs to be left behind in 2021.

A professional assassin is hired. His instructions detail a time and place, but no name. The paid killer must find the right target, but what if the person is the least he expects?

The moment this movie starts you know exactly how it’s going to end, but Anthony Hopkins is in it, so maybe there’s some interesting along the way.

Unfortunately, the pulse of this dead-on-arrival thriller stays in flatline because the script has nothing new to offer and makes no effort to take a creative spin on a well-worn assassin story.

The assassin for hire (Anson Mount) lives stereotypically off-grid. He lives in a cabin and has no family and friends. But he still has a tiny piece of humanity left enough for him to warm up to a stray dog. A mysterious man (Anthony Hopkins) hands out his assignments.

The barely-there story wants us to care for a paid killer who’s having a crisis of conscience, but the script has mistaken a voice-over for characterization. Mount’s movie trailer voice makes deadpan line readings that sound like they were lifted from “Hitman for Dummies”.

“You keep your true identity protected. You avoid the postal service and open a mailbox run by an independent company. No names. No trail.”

It ain’t satire and the movie takes itself seriously.

The mysterious man eventually gets the assassin back on track and you find out the only reason why Hopkins is here. The assassin visits his father’s grave and the mysterious man appears to tell his Vietnam story.

Lucky for director Nick Stagliano, this is enough to lure in more familiar talents – Eddie Marzan, Abbie Cornish, and David Morse. None of the cast phone it in, but the characters have the same dimension as a cardboard cutout.

The Virtuoso is hired to kill “White Rivers” but none of the developments is the least bit interesting because, on top of its paint-by-number plot, it’s also narrated beat by beat and details his every move in second person. More cringe dialogue follows.

“I want to finish my burger then I want to spend the night in a warm embrace, the kind you get only after great sex,” says “Dixy, like the cup”.

The Virtuoso is one of the worst movies of 2021.