''The Virtuoso'' is a 2021 American

neo-noir Neo-noir is a revival of film noir, a genre that had originally flourished during the post-World War II era in the United Statesroughly from 1940 to 1960. The French term, ''film noir'', translates literally to English as "black film", indicating ...

crime In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a State (polity), state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definit ...

thriller film Thriller film, also known as suspense film or suspense thriller, is a broad film genre that evokes excitement and suspense in the audience. The suspense element found in most films' plots is particularly exploited by the filmmaker in this genre ...

directed and produced by

Nick Stagliano Nick Stagliano is a film director and producer. He has been president and producer/director of the Nazz Productions Inc., a New York-based producer and distributor of film and television entertainment contents. Director credits *'' Home of Ang ...

. The film stars

Anson Mount Anson Adams Mount IV (born February 25, 1973) is an American actor. He is known for his television roles as Cullen Bohannon in the AMC western drama series ''Hell on Wheels'', as Jim Steele on the NBC series ''Conviction'' (2006), as the Marvel Co ...

Abbie Cornish Abbie Cornish (born 7 August 1982) is an Australian actress. Cornish is best known for her film roles as Heidi in ''Somersault'' (2004), Fanny Brawne in '' Bright Star'' (2009), Sweet Pea in ''Sucker Punch'' (2011), Lindy in '' Limitless'' (20 ...

Eddie Marsan Edward Maurice Charles Marsan (born 9 June 1968) 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). He has feature ...

Richard Brake Richard Colin Brake (born 30 November 1964) is a Welsh-American character actor, known for his supporting roles as Joe Chill in ''Batman Begins'' (2005), Doom-Head in '' 31'' (2016), and the chemist in '' Mandy'' (2018), as well as his lead role ...

David Morse David Bowditch Morse (born October 11, 1953) is an American actor, singer, television director, and writer. He first came to national attention as Dr. Jack "Boomer" Morrison in the medical drama series ''St. Elsewhere'' (1982–88). His film ca ...

, and

Anthony Hopkins Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins (born 31 December 1937) is a Welsh actor, director, and producer. One of Britain's most recognisable and prolific actors, he is known for his performances on the screen and stage. Hopkins has received many accolad ...

. It follows a professional

assassin Assassination is the murder of a prominent or VIP, important person, such as a head of state, head of government, politician, world leader, member of a royal family or CEO. The murder of a celebrity, activist, or artist, though they may not ha ...

who must track down and kill his latest target to satisfy an outstanding debt to his mentor.

Summary

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.

Cast

Production

Filming occurred in January 2019 in

Santa Ynez, California Santa Ynez (; Spanish for "St. Agnes") is a census-designated place (CDP) in the Santa Ynez Valley of Santa Barbara County, California. The town of Santa Ynez is one of the communities of the Santa Ynez Valley. It features the Santa Ynez Airport ...

. Filming also occurred in

Scranton, Pennsylvania Scranton is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania, Lackawanna County. With a population of 76,328 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 U ...

in late March and early April 2019.

Release

In March 2021,

Lionsgate Films Lionsgate Films (formerly known as Cinépix Film Properties) is an American film production and film distribution studio, headquartered in Santa Monica and founded in Canada, and is the flagship division of Lionsgate Entertainment. It is the larg ...

acquired the North American and U.K. distribution rights to the film, which was simultaneously released in theaters and on VOD and

digital Digital usually refers to something using discrete digits, often binary digits. Technology and computing Hardware *Digital electronics, electronic circuits which operate using digital signals **Digital camera, which captures and stores digital i ...

on April 30, 2021. It was released on

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kin ...

and

Blu-ray The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of sto ...

on May 4, 2021, by

Lionsgate Home Entertainment Lions Gate Entertainment Corporation, doing business as Lionsgate, is a Canadian-American entertainment company. It was formed by Frank Giustra on July 10, 1997, domiciled in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and is currently headquartered in ...

Reception

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, 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." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, the film has a weighted average score of 24 out of 100, based on 7 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Leslie Felperin of ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' gave the film 2 out of 5 stars and wrote:

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Virtuoso (film), The 2021 action thriller films 2021 crime thriller films 2020s chase films American action thriller films American crime thriller films American chase films American neo-noir films Films about assassinations Films about snipers Films shot in California Films shot in Pennsylvania Lionsgate films 2020s English-language films 2020s American films