"The Killer" review — Sardonic assassins and cold-hearted revenge
“Stick to the plan. Anticipate, don’t improvise. Fight only the battle you’re paid to fight. Trust no one.”
Those are the words spoken over and over again as a mantra by Michael Fassbender’s nameless assassin in The Killer, the latest film from director David Fincher. They’re spoken as a set of rules or fundamental instructions for doing his job well. Being a hired hitman is not an easy job. It takes extreme mental clarity, unrelenting focus, a total lack of empathy, and no hesitation. Fassbender’s Killer is one of the few who can do this job well. The first twenty-five-ish minutes of the film are dedicated to showing our protagonist’s careful plan while he narrates his personal philosophy and methodology. He’s on a routine mission in Paris: he has camped out in an apartment across the street from his target. He carefully studies his target’s comings and goings, trying to find the perfect time to execute his plan, all the while detailing his thoughts on being an assassin. “Forbid empathy. Empathy is weakness. Weakness is vulnerability,” he says about how he stays so calm. One night, the Killer has the target in the sight of his sniper rifle. He deliberately slows his heart rate down to 60 BPM to avoid any unnecessary disturbances to the precision of his shot. He breathes and then applies a soft pressure on the trigger. But, for the first time in his career, he misses. And his whole world starts to crumble.
The Killer is the twelfth feature film from acclaimed director David Fincher, whose filmography includes Fight Club (1999), Gone Girl (2014), and The Social Network (2010). It’s based on a series of French graphic novels by writer Alexis “Matz” Nolent and artist Luc Jacamon with a script penned by Andrew Kevin Walker. The Killer is playing in territory familiar to Fincher in his filmography with its uses of extreme violence, moody lighting and cinematography, and antisocial characters. However, the film isn’t quite as punchy as some of Fincher’s earlier work, like Fight Club or Se7en (1995), making it the work of a more mature filmmaker. It’s considerably smaller-scale and more intimate than most of Fincher’s films, despite its globe-trotting narrative, but still drips with style and character. The Killer certainly isn’t Fincher’s best work, but it’s a fun genre thriller nonetheless. The film probably won’t win any new converts to the work of Fincher (it’s probably a little too emotionally alienating for anyone wanting more than style), but it remains a satisfying enough affair for fans of his work.
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| Michael Fassbender in The Killer. Photo via Netflix. |
Now on the run, The Killer races back to the Dominican Republic, the closest place he has to home. However, his critical misstep back in Paris has vicious consequences for him back at home, with the sudden revelation that his safehouse is not nearly as secure as he thought it was. His girlfriend, Magdala (played by Sophie Charlotte), has been shot by a pair of assassins and is barely hanging on to life. The Killer begins his hunt for the culprits, taking him from the poorest neighbourhoods of the Dominican Republic to the wealthiest places in America in a desperate quest for revenge.
Michael Fassbender leads the film as “The Killer,” the only name he’s identified as in the film’s credits. The Killer’s narration scores the entire film — with the occasional insertion of a Smiths song or the intrusion of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’s thundering score — giving us front-row seats to his thought process and psychological state. The Killer is good at what he does. In fact, he’s probably one of the best in the world. Although this killer’s skills aren’t so much John Wick, whose gun-fu skills allow him to rip through scores of anonymous goons, but rather stem from his relentless patience and ingenuity. There are few real action sequences here and, when the Killer is forced into a violent fight, he’s just barely getting out of it alive. He survives in his world of blood and violence by being smarter than everyone around him. He’s guided by a philosophy of apathy and remorselessness. He shares his thoughts about the state of the world, morality, death, how to hide in plain sight, and how to get high-paying jobs. He has no creed, no flag, and no alliegiances.
While we spend the entire movie trapped in The Killer’s thoughts, we never actually know who Fassbender’s character is. He’s addressed by a dozen aliases, but we never know his real name. This extends to many of the film’s other main characters as well. Tilda Swinton plays The Expert, Charles Parnell plays The Lawyer, and Arliss Howard plays The Client. All of these supporting performances are strong, although filtered through the cold, emotionless reality that permeates the entire movie. This goes beyond just its grim tone, to which Fincher is no stranger. Grim tones do not exclude human, knowable characters. But The Killer abstracts its plays into mere impressions of people, people who fulfil social and narrative roles rather than emotional roles. This lack of emotional connection makes it a difficult film to truly love. But while there’s the lack of actual human characters, the film’s soulless sense of humour gives a depraved heart to the film.
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| Tilda Swinton in The Killer. Photo via Netflix. |
The Killer channels distinct influences from Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le Samouraï (1967), although with a distinctly more sardonic outlook. While The Killer might not be the most emotionally available film, it’s certainly a humorous one, although that humour is often blacker than midnight and relates to death and murder. “When was my last, nice, quiet drowning?” The Killer remarks in a sarcastic tone towards the beginning of the film. This sort of tongue-in-cheek irony is a consistent through line in The Killer’s dialogue and narration and the general attitude the film has towards violence. Its scenes of violence come in bursts rather than in any prolonged sequence, with one exception about halfway through the film. Adding to this is The Killer’s penchant for music by 1980s British rock band, The Smiths, whose greatest hits accompany many of the bouts of violence. The Killer truly survives through Fassbender’s performance, who is one of the few actors who would have enough solitary gravitas to bring such a bare-bones character to life. Although the film’s execution is quite marvellous as well. Fincher, with decades of experience, is a veteran of the film art form and The Killer displays his talents well. The Killer largely succeeds in the technical, however, more than anything else.
The Killer is an isolating, emotionless experience told through the perspective of a soulless, isolated protagonist. The film reflects this too, with its cool, calculated cinematography, editing, and direction. You won’t find the 90s punk sensibilities of Fight Club, the corporate ferocity of The Social Network, or the complex relationships of Gone Girl here. It’s a film that feels frozen in its lead character’s antisocial tendencies. Perhaps it’s a more mature version of Fight Club, where the emotionally stunted protagonist is not glamourized in a glorious revolution but is presented for the repressed, horrific figure that they are. Many viewers will find The Killer totally inaccessible for some very valid reasons. It’s a difficult film to really get into. But for those well-versed in Fincher’s work and who want to see how the filmmaker is aging, The Killer is definitely worth checking out. It’s a dark, nihilistic tale about a dark, nihilistic man. The world belongs to the cruel.
The Killer is now streaming on Netflix.
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