Virgil Bliss |  | Director: Joe Maggio
Actors: Clint Jordan, Kirsten Russell, Anthony Gorman, Greg Amici, Marc Romeo
Studio: FIRST RUN FEATURES
Category: DVD
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $12.40
as of 2/10/2010 09:29 EST details
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Rating:  4 reviews
Sales Rank: 154574
Format: Color, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: Unrated
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 94 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.1
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.4 x 0.6
UPC: 720229910354
EAN: 0720229910354
ASIN: B00006JMQB
Theatrical Release Date: 2001
Release Date: November 26, 2002
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Virgil Bliss (Clint Jordan) is a mild-mannered Southerner and career criminal who is released from prison and sent to a half way house in Brooklyn. Upon his release, he becomes obsessed with living a normal life, finding a good job, marrying a decent woman, and building a family of his own. However, Virgil meets Manny Alvarez (Anthony Gorman), a fiery troublemaker who introduces Virgil to Ruby (Kirsten Russell), an opportunistic junkie and prostitute, and Virgil falls instantly in love....
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| Customer Reviews:
High-budget Production Isn't All There Is To Good Storytelling February 24, 2008
C. Rocklein
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Virgil Bliss is a likable character. From the beginning you like his manners and earnest demeanor. You realize he's going up against a serious challenge in trying to find love in a street hooker named Ruby. And in overcoming his own disadvantageous position as a recent ex-con. Not helping the situation any is Manny, his room-mate from the halfway house which he occupies a couple of weeks before moving in with Ruby.
For acting, the movie works quite well in proving high budget production isn't all there is to good storytelling through cinema. I hesitate to say low-budget because of the connotations that come with the word. Let's just say that it often looks like a hand-held cam-corder was what they were filming with. It may have been. However, due to the nature of the story and location, it doesn't detract too much from the overall visual experience (in some ways, it adds a level of realism that is already there in the actors performances - and they are strong performances). Grainy and faded color picture are also sometimes a result. Still, I would have liked the volume level on my dvd to have been a little better. I had my set all the way up in order to hear it at a comfortable level (and I don't think I'm hard of hearing). Interviews with the director, which are included on the dvd, didn't seem to be as volume challenged as the movie. Don't worry, turned up high, you'll hear it just fine, though there are no subtitles.
Obviously for mature audiences, this movie has a lot of soul - a search for something sustaining and true amidst the corruption of existence.
 Virgil Bliss February 14, 2007
Heather M. Guthrie (Texas)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
What an incredible film! I loved Virgil from the opening right up to the violent moment of his undoing. What a powerful film. This is one of those movies you want to share with all the intelligent, thoughtful people you know. Virgil is a real person and we want him to have the life he so desperately searches for once he's been released from prison. Yet fate, or circumstance, or just dumb luck haunt him in the forms of Manny, the first "friend" Virgil makes on the outside, the halfway house "counselor" who is mostly concerned with showing his macho stuff, a society demanding that Virgil make it on his own but then won't allow him the most basic snese of self-determination, and an overall system programmed not to care. Virgil could have made it, and that is the tragedy of his story. Incredible performances all around but especially Clint Jordan as Virgil. If you crave excellent films that demand your full attention but then require you to come up with the answers, Virgil Bliss is for you.
Virgil Bliss---Moral force administrator or subject December 28, 2002
LeRoy C. Kottke (Oscoda, MI USA)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
At second viewing I was struck by how minimal the dailog was. The first time through I was captured by the total presentation; verbal and visual images combined. The minimalist technique is very effective since it allows you time to process the underlying meaning which you are always groping for in this film. Virgil is an unglamorous hero, but his morality is always on the line and being tested strongly as he copes with the harshness of his environment. One wonders about the source of his resolve and conviction. He is above all human however and cannot escape the overwhelming forces that surround him and try to destroy him at every turn.
THIS MOVIE IS SIMPLY AMAZING... December 3, 2002
Matthew Myers (Regina Hills, PA)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
"Virgil Bliss" is one of those rare movies that come along once in a long while--the kind of picture that doesn't yield all the answers in just one viewing, the sort of pic you have to watch more than once. What makes the movie worth watching repeatedly are the incredible performances by Clint Jordan and the cast, some of whom are non-actors with great faces and honest, true-life delivery. A must-see for anybody interested in real stories about real people and not that [stuff] being shoveled out by Hollywood. An antidote to "Harry Potter".
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