10 Worst Movies Of 2021
6. The Virtuoso
Can we get a moratorium on self-consciously moody thrillers about stoic hitmen taking on One Last Job? Nick Stagliano's The Virtuoso just might've killed the subgenre outright.
The film stars Anson Mount as the titular assassin roped into one final gig in order to clear an outstanding debt, and right from its disastrous opening sequence where Mount's protagonist speaks in hilariously robotic, monotone voiceover to the audience, it's clear we're in for a rough ride.
Stagliano is clearly aiming for gritty and hard-boiled but the end result feels more like a parody of just that, so seriously does it take itself while proving so frequently laughable.
The only saving grace is a small supporting appearance from Anthony Hopkins, who delivers a graveyard monologue that clearly belongs in a much better movie. In a bout of amusing timing, the film was released mere days after Hopkins won a Best Actor Oscar for his work in The Father.
Even as a garden variety thriller, The Virtuoso falls at the first hurdle by failing to give us a "hero" worth rooting for - he's a humourless bore and impossible to accept as an apparent "expert" hitman.