3 Short Paragraphs: The Virtuoso

2021, Nick Stagliano (The Florentine) -- download

I was always fond of the voiceover / narration in that version of Bladerunner. It just felt noir for me. But in that movie, it was added (and then later removed) only to impart the neo-noir style upon the viewer, the tone of this futuristic film, and where Rick Deckard would fit into it. The Virtuoso chooses narration, and in the second person at that, as if our unnamed assassin (Anson Mount, Star Trek: Discovery) was sitting in a comfy arm chair reading his favourite battered crime novel, maybe to connect us to the noir style, which it fails to do in but the thinnest threads, or maybe to just be pretentious as Hell.

Instead, the movie is a by-the-books assassin thriller, with the feeblest attempt at a twist ending. Mount's nameless killer reads to us about how concentration, focus, planning and details allow him to be a great killer; he does not get distracted, ever. Then, he gets distracted, by mistiming a shot, causing a car to veer into an RV that must have been packed with TNT. For a brief moment, I thought the mother playing soccer with her son, the distraction, was the real target. Alas, she is just the pivotal moment so our concentrating, focusing, well-planning killer can become even more distracted by guilt over the collateral damage. His bosses, coordinated by Anthony Hopkins (Freejack), are not happy and present him with a redeeming job via a cryptic note with only a time, place and word/name. 

The place is the middle of fucking nowhere, a roadside diner filled with the usual cast of a bottle movie, except it doesn't take place inside the bottle. Instead these are just the suspected targets that Mount has to narrate all his possible reasons for killing them, or ignoring them. To be honest, I was not as bored as most reviewers, as I did like the tone, and while I knew there had to be a twist coming, the movie was so lacking in skilled execution (some would say, like Mount's character) that I thought it could go anywhere. I also rather liked the way Mount played the utterly bland, clad in blacks & greys, assassin with more than a hint of being on the spectrum. He was not sexy, stylish Bond but more the quiet sociopath redirecting all his awkwardness down one path. Still, the supporting cast is wasted, but for Abbie Cornish (Sucker Punch) who is superb. 

And to be honest, I thought the dog was going to be the twist.