Butler's Cinema Scene

“THE VIRTUOSO” My rating: B- (In theaters)

110 minutes | MPAA rating: R

The hit man movie occupies a curious corner of the noir world. Invariably these efforts center on a ruthlessly efficient killer who finds himself emotionally involved with a target, experiencing twinges of guilt or generally questioning his choice of professions.

 Nick Stagliano’s “The Virtuoso” works a couple of intriguing variations on the usual setup.

The first and most interesting is voiceover narration that dispassionately describes the daily workings of a professional killer. This narration is provided by leading man Anson Mount, and compensates for the fact that on screen his character says almost nothing. So it’s kind of neat that we get to hear his thoughts as he goes about his deadly business.

“You’re a professional devoted to timing and precision. A virtuoso,” our antihero (identified only as the Virtuoso) offers.

Truth is, the Virtuoso appears to be a mystery even to himself. He lives in an isolated cabin. He seems to have no friends or acquaintances apart from the Mentor (Anthony Hopkins), who farms out contracts to our man and other pro killers. He doesn’t even have a pet, although from time to time he sets out a bowl of kibble for the feral dog that lives among the trees.

Early on the Virtuoso executes a murder, but there is collateral damage in the person of an innocent bystander. Apparently for the first time he feels remorse for killing…indeed, he is so unnerved by the experience that the Mentor — who normally communicates only by phone — shows up in person to check on his charge’s emotional state and to give a long graveyard monologue about how he and the Virtuoso’s father served together on an assassination squad in Vietnam. (This is about as much background as we’ll get on our leading character.)

For his next job the Virtuoso is sent to a small burg in upstate New York. His instructions are maddeningly vague. He’s supposed to look for someone or something known as White River; apparently he’ll know what to do when the time comes.

An evening spent in a local diner gives him several possibilities to investigate. There’s a lone diner (Eddie Marsen) who looks suspicious (that lump under his jacket certainly looks like a gun). A middle-aged pair (Richard Brake, Diora Baird) seem to have only recently hooked up…they’re in their own pheromone haze). But that might just be a cover. A sheriff’s deputy (David Morse) drops by radiating danger.

At least the tough-talking, seen-it-all waitress behind the counter (Abbie Cornish) oozes small-town friendliness. She even hints that she might be amenable to a little intimate action with our handsome newcomer.

The screenplay by Stagliano and James C. Wolf is a densely packed with clues…although most viewers won’t recognize them as clues until the final credits. About every 15 minutes there’s an effectively staged action sequence as the Virtuoso confronts the various suspects.

The main drawback of “The Virtuoso” is that the title character is so tightly wound, so self-contained and outwardly unemotional that after a while we begin to lose interest in him. Mount (star of the cable Western “Hell on Wheels”) has rugged good looks, but struggles to fill in enough of the blank spaces to keep us engaged.

Ultimately the film delivers several gotcha revelations which make the investment of time worthwhile.

| Robert W. Butler