The Killer
“The Killer” is in many ways just what you would expect from a David Fincher movie about an assassin for hire, it is a detailed procedural about what they are forced to do as their world falls apart around them. And by telling the story of this deadly perfectionist who repeats phrases such as “Forbid Empathy” to keep himself centered, Fincher plays into his reputation as a precise (almost obsessive) filmmaker. Although it may be based on a graphic novel by Alexis “Matz” Nolent, this feels like his most personal film to date.
It certainly doesn’t hurt to have an actor in the lead role who has shown himself capable of playing soulless monsters before and there is some David from “Prometheus” in what Michael Fassbender brings to this nameless protagonist. “The Killer” opens with him narrating over an extended scene where we watch him on a multi-day stakeout in Paris. He keeps tabs on the café below, dips out to McDonald’s for protein, and listens to The Smiths (about a dozen songs from the seminal band give the film an incredible soundtrack and add to its deadpan humor). But he mostly tries to blend in, noting that he chose his disguise as a German tourist because most French people hate German tourists. In this character-defining prologue, Fincher and writer Andrew Kevin Walker (“Seven”) tell us nothing is rushed. It’s a slow look inside the mind of someone who kills people for money, he thinks about how many people are born and die every day anything he does is just a drop in an ocean.
After several days pass without incident, The Killer’s target finally arrives at the penthouse across the street. And then something happens that never has happened to our “hero” he misses. He shoots an innocent bystander instead of the person he was aiming for. He knows immediately what this means and races home to the Dominican Republic, where he finds his partner slowly dying. They have both already been cleaned up by the clean up crew. It is here that The Killer essentially breaks his own rules. He has storage units stocked in cities across America and money socked away in foreign accounts for a lifetime of never being seen again. He could run. But instead of doing so, this man who has told himself never to improvise and always keep things from getting personal goes the other way, he tries to burn everybody who came into his house and those who sent them there, too. Arliss Howard, Charles Parnell and Tilda Swinton co-star but this is basically a one-man show, it’s about an icy assassin forced to get a little hot.
Fincher’s love for this project is shown in every frame, as he delves into themes that have always interested him obsession, perfectionism, power. It certainly helps that he brings some of his most accomplished collaborators along with him including cinematographer Erik Messerschmidt (“Gone Girl”), editor Kirk Baxter (“The Social Network”), and even Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross for the score. “The Killer” hums on a technical level like few films of its ilk in recent memory simply because of the pedigree of the team behind it. You can tell they all share the same perfectionism as the famously detail oriented filmmaker, and this is the kind of production that rewards that sense of detail. It’s not a film that should be rough around the edges it works because it’s as finely tuned as one of The Killer’s jobs.
Of course, some may question why we’re watching an amoral monster try to save himself, and Fincher and Walker don’t shy away from this fact either. I kept expecting “The Killer” to try and soften its leading man, but there’s no escaping what he is: He’s a cold-blooded killer. When he broke one victim’s neck, I heard an audible gasp in my film festival audience as if they were waiting for mercy. That’s not something this character carries in his go-bag; his approach to murder is completely cynical and procedural. This won’t be a story of redemption but precision, it’s what happens when one of the most precise people in the world makes a mistake. Fincher rushes through the final act with Walker (the shortest epilogue ever), but I think complaints about it will fade on second viewing; it feels appropriate to the no-nonsense approach of The Killer.
All this might make “The Killer” seem like a bit much, but I’d also note that it’s actually one of his funniest films. There’s a great running bit about the assassin’s fake names. And there are so many familiar brands here Starbucks, Amazon, WeWork, even Wordle that it feels like a commentary on a world commodified and cold enough to let a killer slip through it undetected because people are too busy staring at something else. He counts on that.
Finally, there’s the undeniable Fincher-ness of “The Killer.” One could see this as a filmmaker playing his greatest hits with his best bandmates again, but I think there’s more to it than that. This isn’t just an artist repeating himself; this is someone taking another pass at his themes and obsessions in a bold new way. It ultimately asks if people like The Killer can shut the world out long enough to get the job done. And by extension, if David Fincher can too.
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