The Virtuoso | |
---|---|
Directed by | Nick Stagliano |
Written by | James C. Wolf |
Produced by | Nick Stagliano |
Starring | Anson Mount Abbie Cornish Anthony Hopkins |
Cinematography | Frank Prinzi |
Edited by | James LeSage |
Music by | Brooke Blair Will Blair |
Production companies | Nazz Productions 120dB Films Double Dutch International |
Distributed by | Lionsgate Films |
Release date |
|
Running time | 110 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
The Virtuoso is a 2021 American neo-noir [1] crime thriller film directed and produced by Nick Stagliano. The film stars Anson Mount, Abbie Cornish, Eddie Marsan, Richard Brake, David Morse, and Anthony Hopkins. It follows a professional assassin who must track down and kill his latest target to satisfy an outstanding debt to his mentor. [2] [3]
An assassin is given a strange assignment by his mentor wherein he must kill a hitman. He is armed just with time and location of hitman, he must find, who really is his target.
Filming occurred in January 2019 in Santa Ynez, California. [5] Filming also occurred in Scranton, Pennsylvania in late March and early April 2019. [6] [7] [8]
In March 2021, Lionsgate Films acquired the North American and U.K. distribution rights to the film, [9] which was simultaneously released in theaters and on VOD and digital on April 30, 2021. [10]
It was released on DVD and Blu-ray on May 4, 2021, by Lionsgate Home Entertainment. [11]
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 18%, based on 55 reviews, with an average rating of 4.1/10. The website's consensus reads, "Don't let the title -- or the talented cast -- fool you: The Virtuoso falls far shy of even base level competency in its attempts to wring fresh excitement from a threadbare assassin thriller setup." [12] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 24 out of 100, based on 7 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". [13]
Leslie Felperin of The Guardian gave the film 2 out of 5 stars and wrote:
"When it’s all over and the big twist you saw coming in the first 15 minutes has been revealed, you feel empty, a bit depressed, and like you need another cup of coffee." [14]
Abbie Cornish is an Australian actress. In film, Cornish is known for her roles as Heidi in Somersault (2004), Fanny Brawne in Bright Star (2009), Sweet Pea in Sucker Punch (2011), Lindy in Limitless (2011), Clara Murphy in RoboCop (2014), and Sarah in Geostorm (2017). She worked with writer/director Martin McDonagh in Seven Psychopaths (2012) and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017). For the latter, Cornish won her first Screen Actors Guild Award as part of the cast. In 2018, she portrayed Cathy Mueller in the first season of Amazon Video series Jack Ryan opposite John Krasinski, a role she reprised in the fourth and final season in 2023. She also played Dixy in the film The Virtuoso (2021) alongside Anthony Hopkins.
Edward Maurice Charles Marsan is an English actor. He won the London Film Critics Circle Award and the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actor for the film Happy-Go-Lucky (2008).
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Stanley Preschutti is an American film producer and technology executive. Preschutti presented new 3D entertainment technology at the 3D Summit in Hollywood, California in September 2012. In 2021, Lionsgate announced the distribution of Preschutti's film, The Virtuoso, starring Anthony Hopkins. Preschutti is best known as the executive producer on the film, Paradise City, starring Bruce Willis and John Travolta, which is their fourth film together, after Look Who's Talking, Look Who's Talking Too, and Pulp Fiction.
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