Virtuosity | |
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Theatrical release poster
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Directed by | Brett Leonard |
Produced by | Gary Lucchesi |
Written by | Eric Bernt |
Starring | |
Music by | Christopher Young |
Cinematography | Gale Tattersall |
Edited by |
Conrad Buff Rob Kobrin B.J. Sears |
Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
Release date
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Running time
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106 minutes |
Language | English |
Budget | $30 million |
Box office | $24,047,675 |
Virtuosity is a 1995 American science fiction action film directed by Brett Leonard, and starring Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe. Howard W. Koch, Jr. served as an executive producer for the film. Virtuosity had an estimated budget of $30 million, but only made $24 million at the domestic box office. The film was released in the United States on August 4, 1995.
In Los Angeles, Lt. Parker Barnes and John Donovan are tracking down a serial killer named SID 6.7 at a restaurant in virtual reality. SID (short for Sadistic, Intelligent, Dangerous - a VR amalgam of the most violent serial killers throughout history) causes Donovan to go into shock, killing him. The director overseeing the project, before Commissioner Elizabeth Deane and her associate, William Wallace, orders the programmer in charge of creating SID, Dr. Darrel Lindenmeyer, to shut down the project. Barnes is a former police officer imprisoned for killing political terrorist Matthew Grimes, who killed Parker's wife and daughter. Barnes killed Grimes and innocent bystanders. This caused him to become a convicted killer and serve 17 years to life.
Barnes meets with criminal psychologist Dr. Madison Carter following a fight that Barnes and another prisoner, Big Red, got into. Meanwhile, Lindenmeyer tells SID that he is about to be shut down because of the fail-safe being tampered with. At SID's suggestion, Lindenmeyer convinces another employee, Clyde Reilly that a virtual reality prostitute, Shelia 3.2, another project created by Lindenmeyer, can be brought to life. Lindenmeyer replaces the Shelia 3.2 module with the SID 6.7 module. SID 6.7, now processed into the real world, kills Reilly.
Once word of SID being in the real world gets out, Deane and Los Angeles Police Department Chief William Cochran offer Barnes a deal: if he catches SID and brings him back to virtual reality, he will be released. Barnes agrees, and with help from Carter, they discover that Matthew Grimes, the terrorist that killed Barnes's wife and daughter, is a part of SID 6.7's personality profile. After killing a group of security guards, SID heads over to the Media Zone, a local nightclub, where he takes hostages. Barnes and Carter go to the nightclub to stop him, but SID escapes.