The Killer, 2023.
Directed by David Fincher
Starring Michael Fassbender, Charles Parnell, Arliss Howard, Kerry O’Malley, Sala Baker, with Tilda Swinton and Sophie Charlotte
SYNOPSIS:
After a fateful near-miss an assassin battles his employers, and himself, on an international manhunt he insists isn’t personal.
David Fincher once again peers into the darker recesses of the world with The Killer, a film that’s the equivalent of looking into the dead eye of a shark and hoping to see a flicker of something, but ending up feeling overwhelmed by the hopelessness of the void staring back at you. Oh, and there’s a playlists worth of songs by The Smiths on the soundtrack. Upbeat enough for you?
There’s no hitman with a heart narrative here. Michael Fassbender’s taught target-man doesn’t give a fuck. His recurring mantra forbids empathy, underlining the need to stick to a plan and never improvise.
The Paris-set opening takes us through his routine, which is so tedious that at one point even he has had enough, threatening to give his handler two more days of peering through a sniper rifle’s scope and eating McDonalds (other fast food joints are available, the product placement is testament to that), before retreating to his Dominican Republic safehouse.
He ends up there anyway, because an uncharacteristic mishap triggers a series of events that sets our protagonist on a journey of retaliation when he discovers the horrors laid out for him in his paradise retreat.
Adapted from Alexis Nolent and Luc Jacamon’s graphic novel, Se7en scribe Andrew Kevin Walker’s script is one of relatively simple linear revenge, all filtered through Fincher’s gloomy lens, and broken into chapters in a way that Fassbender’s by-the-book obsessive would appreciate.
On which, the actor returns to form with a proper slice of assassin’s creed. Leaning into the synthetic stoicism mastered in his role as David from Prometheus, it’s in the sporadically comic voiceover that Fassbender’s reptilian performance can be found. He’s a difficult character to spend time with, and that unease isn’t going to be tempered by his co-stars, because however great Tilda Swinton and Kerry O’Malley are, and they are brilliant, The Killer is a film dominated by Fassbender’s presence.
The chapters are punctuated by violence, some of it unseen, some of it startlingly executed to wince-inducing effect. The sound-mix, especially during a mid-film smack-down that’ll have you watching through your fingers, hits with more precision than one of Fassbender’s bullets, with every neck crack and punch landing in the viewer’s chest, accompanied by involuntarily “ooofts” and “aaaahhhs”. It’s never indulgent or excessive, by the brevity of it leaves a bruise.
If when The Killer‘s mission is over you feel unfulfilled as a viewer, yearning for catharsis or a dramatic twist to shatter your own window, then that’s kind of the point. This is a film holding up a mirror to a world with little accountability, especially when it comes to “the few”, so don’t expect any fairy-tale endings from Fincher. You should know better than that.
It’s cold to the touch and clearly won’t be for everyone, but The Killer finds Fincher back to his Vantablack best with a lean, meticulous, and intermittently cruel exercise in top-tier filmmaking.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie ★ ★ ★ ★
Matt Rodgers – Follow me on Twitter
Originally published November 7, 2023. Updated November 8, 2023.
