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Title: Virtuosity (1995)
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| Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
| Denzel Washington | ... | Lt. Parker Barnes | |
| Kelly Lynch | ... | Madison Carter | |
| Russell Crowe | ... | SID 6.7 | |
| Stephen Spinella | ... | Lindenmeyer | |
| William Forsythe | ... | William Cochran | |
| Louise Fletcher | ... | Elizabeth Deane | |
| William Fichtner | ... | Wallace | |
| Costas Mandylor | ... | John Donovan | |
| Kevin J. O'Connor | ... | Clyde Reilly | |
| Kaley Cuoco | ... | Karin Carter | |
| Christopher Murray | ... | Matthew Grimes | |
 |
Heidi Schanz | ... | Sheila 3.2 |
| Traci Lords | ... | Media Zone Singer | |
| Gordon Jennison Noice | ... | Big Red (as J. Gordon Noice) | |
| Mari Morrow | ... | Linda Barnes | |
The Law Enforcement Technology Advancement Centre (LETAC) has developed SID version 6.7: a Sadistic, Intelligent, and Dangerous virtual reality entity which is synthesized from the personalities of more than 150 serial killers. LETAC would like to train police officers by putting them in VR with SID, but they must prove the concept by using prisoners as test subjects. One such prisoner is ex-cop Parker Barnes. When SID manages to inject his personality into a nano-machine android, it appears that Barnes might be the only one who can stop him. Written by Murray Chapman <muzzle@cs.uq.oz.au>
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"Virtuosity" plays out a lot like any ultra-violent video game. Denzel Washington plays the hero Parker Barnes while an over-the-top Russell Crowe plays Sid 6.7, the villain. The setting is futuristic Los Angeles. The story is that a hostile computer program (Sid 6.7) has escaped cyberspace and has assumed human form and an incarcerated cop (Barnes) is the only person who can stop him. Sid 6.7 craves media attention, as he is the composite of 183+ serial killers including Adolf Hitler, Charles Manson, and the man who murdered Parker's wife and daughter. Sid constantly uses taunts to try to get Parker to slip up and leaves a trail of dead bodies as well. The protagonist is played much like any other, he's vulnerable and is determined to stop the villain. The antagonist is like any classic villain, completely over-the-top and only exists to be beaten. However, Sid is not like most video game villains. Sid is nearly invincible because he is not human, but a machine. In addition to that, he can regenerate his injuries by using the silicon properties of glass. This proves to be quite a challenge for Parker as it makes defeating Sid very difficult. In the end, this advantage is also Sid's only weakness: the larger his injuries, the longer time it will take to regenerate and the easier it is for him to be defeated.
Now some people may view "Virtuosity" to be, at best, ultra-violent entertainment, which it is not. This film is actually a lot more than that. What "Virtuosity" is trying to show us, is how truly f****d up our society has or will become. The best example of this is during the "Death T.V." scene when Sid 6.7 holds a television studio hostage. During this scene, the camera makes numerous cuts to computer screens that are showing the television ratings. Note that when Sid 6.7 first takes over the studio, that the very low ratings suddenly skyrocket. From this evidence, one can only conclude that our society thrives on violence. In this case, Sid is not the real villain here. All Sid is doing, is giving us what we want, but can never get, which is violence in all its purity and unrestrained quality.
So, in the words of Sid 6.7:
"You won't be able to take your eyes off the screen."