Tag: Anson Mount

When one thinks of the word ‘virtuoso’ they usually put it towards piano, but it of course can be used for any music. We all accept that. Hell, it could be for any art form. You can be a sculpting virtuoso, or a cross stitching virtuoso, but I can’t imagine anyone likes cross stitching enough to be a virtuoso at it.

And with The Virtuoso, we have a movie about hitmen for hire, killing people. I guess killing people, to make it look like an accident, and never be seen or heard from could be like an artform. They made a game called Hitman, and the ability to cause deaths accidentally is graded on points, I think. I only tried playing it once and I did a bad job at it. Please correct me if I am wrong about the game Hitman. I wouldn’t want such a storied franchise with terrible movies to accidentally have something said incorrect about it.

Back to The Virtuoso. Oh, yeah. The review.

Some say I am food eating virtuoso. But I just think I’m a picky eater.

The Virtuoso is about a guy named The Virtuoso (Anson Mount). Awesome. Good plot. Head home.

We don’t get to know his name, or really any other names here. After all, we also get people with names like The Mentor (Anthony Hopkins) and The Waitress (Abbie Cornish). Our hero (?) doesn’t like to use names I guess, makes things too personal, everything is just a job.

He is a real detailed oriented person and secretive. It has a level of difficulty to hire him for a job, but that helps maintain his own anonymity and allows him to have a life outside of the job. And unfortunately, he gets “forced” into doing a rush job without a lot of proper planning, and that really throws him off balance in life, because extra people died who were innocents, and that is not okay.

Eventually he gets put on a new mission, that requires a lot of set up in a small area, and a lot of targets to take out. Maybe this will be his final one. He can’t get over the killing of innocents. Maybe this will be his swan song. 

Also starring Eddie Marsan, David Morse, and Chris Perfetti. 

“Hey! Come back here Mr. Two-Time-Oscar-Winner!”

The Virtuoso is narrated by the lead character, but done in a very unique way. I guess we are to assume that we are also the virtuoso, and it is more like a stage summary of events. “You look around the room, and check the exits.” You line up your sights and hold your breath.” This sort of thing. Him describing the process and letting us know what is going on. It was very strange at first, but it definitely grew by the end as an interesting tool and didn’t feel unnatural anymore. And also by the end it has a fun little payoff as well, so it makes the journey feel worth it in that regard. 

The Virtuoso is also relatively slow. The beginning execution where the disaster happens that gives our main character regret is relatively quick, but the main plot after that is a much slower build. I don’t know a lot about Mount in other films (but he was in Crossroads which I keep meaning to watch…) but he seems to be trying to play a role similar to Timothy Olyphant in Justified, in terms of coolness, but a lot, lot, quieter. Maybe it is just because their faces are similar to me. He is a fine lead, extremely stoic, but the side characters do a job of making this story interesting.

And in case you are curious, Hopkins is actually in this movie several times, not just a quick one or two scenes. Not just a big name grab. I did like Cornish in this one as well. She has a much bigger role in this film than anything else I have seen her in, and adds some unique plot to the story. 

Overall, if you are looking for a quiet drama with a handful of twists about an assassin, you will end up enjoying this. If you want something with more elaborate deaths, or more action, or more twists, then this one will put you to sleep. 

Anna Kendrick is in six movies this year. Six! That is a crap ton for a single year.

Yes, one of them is animated, so just voice work for Trolls. And two of them I don’t know a thing about. And a wide release comedy. But then there were two films that had extremely limited release, basically straight to DVD.

Mr. Right, of course, and Get A Job. Now going into Mr. Right, I am super biased against it, because I accidentally watched the trailer and basically cringed through out it. Had I not known anything, I might have been a bit more optimistic. But factors working against it include a cringey trailer, a lame title, and a very big age gap between our two romantic leads. Arguably that last point should be put under cringey though.

At least the fashion is bangin’.

Oh, Martha McKay (Anna Kendrick), why do you like such assholes? She is ready to surprised her boyfriend at his place, and he shows up with another lady. Great. So now she is drunk and sad and going to be miserable for ever. Not even playing with kittens seems to help.

Then she runs into Francis (Sam Rockwell). Literally. He does something impressive and invites her out on a date. Right then and there, not knowing anything about her, and she says sure. And aww, it is nice. He might be the one. Sure, she doesn’t know his name, but she will find it out eventually.

Francis also used to be a very high paid assassin. However, he grew some morals and didn’t want to do it anymore. Instead, he would go back and kill the people who paid him to kill someone else. Obviously the morals are shaky and it doesn’t make a lot of sense. So people are out to get him now, as he pissed off many groups of people. Hopper (Tim Roth) used to be a co-worker and is the main antagonist here.

Francis likes Martha and Martha likes Francis. And technically he doesn’t like to her when he says he just killed a person, but she thinks it is a joke. However, eventually she finds out, conflict, some action stuff, and then some more romance. Typical, you know?

Also featuring, as mostly bad people and hitmen, RZA, Michael Eklund, James Ransone, Jaiden Kaine, and Anson Mount.

Gotta have a killing trademark, I guess.

Mr. Right was written by Max Landis, that guy who did American Ultra and other writing things that people love. He is super active in Hollywood right now (not Anna Kendrick active, but high for a writer). American Ultra was weird and unique but still landed to be just okay. Mr. Right is average, kind of dumb, with the occassional great moments. That is not a good sign for Mr. Right.

Again, there are some amusing moments. Kendrick goes super adorkable at points, babbling, making funny noises, sure. But that is not a complete movie. Rockwell doesn’t feel charismatic and the couple together never feel great. I can’t see why Martha becomes so smitten by him so quickly. The only real reason we have is just because the writers say so, but they don’t show it in the film well.

As a comedy it is subpar. As a romance it is almost non-existant. And as an action, well, the action is okay. But it is romcom action, not straight up epic action that purely action movies provide. It is mostly just some hand to hand combat fight scenes with a few Rockwell and RZA jokes thrown in.

They should have made some element really stand out. And Rockwell talking to people in a fight is not enough. Mr. Right is overall very forgettable.

Oooh, Non-Stop, a Liam Neeson action movie where he uses his wit and tactical efficiency to solve a crisis!

I don’t promise a lot about this review of Non-Stop I just promise to make zero Taken jokes. Even if the vague outline I just made sounds like it could easily be used for that movie. It is becoming old-hat to do Taken jokes for just because the movie stars Neeson, so I will let Zach Braff take care of that for me.

Neeson is texting here, to show us he still is up with the times.

Bill Marks (Liam Neeson) is a Federal Air Marshal. He is a quiet man who has had some problems in his life recently, including alcoholism! But that is okay, it is not like he ever has to do anything on his job.

Just kidding! On a flight to London, someone wants to hijack the plane. They have hacked into the local network and are sending text messages to Bill, threatening that someone will die every twenty minutes on the plane unless they get $150 million sent to a bank account. Even more troubling news is that bank account is in Bill’s name, so the TSA and other governmental agencies have assumed that Bill has gone rogue and is hijacking the plane until he gets paid.

Oh no!

Bill will have to use the people he can trust on the plane. Nancy (Michelle Dockerty), a flight attendant who he has worked with before. Jack Hammond (Anson Mount), an off duty Air Marshal also on the flight. And of course, Jen Summers (Julianne Moore), the woman he just met who was sitting next to him in first class.

So, who is the terrorist?! Well here is a list of actors also on the plane to take a pick from, assuming it actually isn’t an inside job and isn’t one of the people already listed in the review: Corey Stoll, Nate Parker, Scoot McNairy, Lupita Nyong’o, Omar Metwally (who has a turban!), Corey Hawkins, and Frank Deal.

Their hands are in the air, yes, but I assure you right now they all care.

I know I might have made the plot of Non-Stop seem cliche/not exciting, but it turned out to be the opposite of that. First off, it wasn’t a mindless action movie. The only big action sequence happens near the end, which you could tell from the trailers. Everything else is based on suspense and tiny clues along the way.

Outside of the first 8 or so minutes, I found myself watching Non-Stop on the edge of my seat. The parts of the movie before boarding the plane were a bit slow, but that can be expected in a movie like this.

Was it believable? No, not really. There are a lot of coincidences and lucky breaks that make the entire evil mastermind plan work. Kind of annoying, but I can get over it.

Somehow, despite the coincidences and questionable plot, I was just really entertained by this movie. It wasn’t obvious who the bad guy was, plenty of red herrings thrown our way throughout the film. In fact, I think knowing “who did it” wouldn’t even ruin future viewings for me, which is a rarity for these types of movies.

Neeson might have actually been the perfect pick for this role as well. He has that aged scruffiness, perfect for a guy who has “seen some shit” in his days.

Check out Non-Stop, which ended up being (surprisingly) one of the better movies for the month of February.