We are so lucky this year. New movies have come from David Fincher, Martin Scorsese, Christopher Nolan, Greta Gerwig, Noah Baumbach, Wes Anderson, Ari Aster, James Gunn… Need I say more? I wouldn’t say I have a favourite director, but I also think David Fincher’s catalogue contains the most out-and-out triumphs, which would probably make him the best…? Therefore, a new Fincher movie is like Christmas on Easter morning, and that’s pretty darn good 🎄🐰
The Killer follows a hitman (Micheal Fassbender) on a job in Paris. He lurks on an abandoned floor of a building, staking out a penthouse across the street and waiting for his target to return home. His internal monologue informs us that most people don’t know what it takes to be a hitman; how there’s a lot of boredom waiting around, and how this hitman must be meticulously calculated in his art of killing in order to be excellent. But his self-assuredness is thrown into question when he misses, and is deemed a liability within his organisation, sending him all across the world to avoid trouble.
This movie is smaller than I expected. Most of The Killer is tracking Fassbender’s movements, to the sound of voiceover. The movie is about the inner machinations and routine of a hired assassin, whilst he consequentially hunts down those who roughed up his girlfriend, and not a lot more than that 😕 Coming into The Killer, from the expectation that we were about to watch a Fincher movie, I thought The Killer would prove more interesting than it is – it’s a revenge thriller, with intricate well-crafted dialogue carrying us through like Rorschach from Watchmen. And dare I call the inner monologue cynical 😏 If The Killer had come about by a newcoming director, then I think we would say that it’s a good debut, showing great control of the camera and cinematography; but this is Fincher we’re talking about, and far be it for me to say he can’t do a small scale movie if the material spoke to him, but I, for one, would be expecting something a little more crisper than common.
I’d heard ahead of time that The Killer had a fight scene to rival the John Wick franchise – it doesn’t. No, the scene in question is too dark and there’re too many cuts for my liking, to properly engage with the action. In this moment of writing, I wish I’d seen The House That Jack Built for that gruesome comparison, as I understand that the Lars von Trier movie was a thought-provoking confession from a serial killer, who’s craft consumes him at all costs as well, albeit from a different type of killer. Micheal Fassbender does have moments where he falls away into the character, but I don’t think the movie, or his performance, do enough to make The Killer iconic. I’d describe our hitman as stealthy and slimy; he has those dead eyes, appropriately at times. Fassbender was cast marvelously as the X-Men’s young Magneto back in the day, and is incredibly vicious for his part in 12 Years a Slave after all, so I think the casting is right. Fassbender also adds to the killer’s presence since he is quite skinny and flexible, and I imagine this killer as a man who only eats when his stomach reminds him, for his mind is always preoccupied with the job.
But I also imagine The Killer as a sharper movie, whereby, perhaps the killer is a man who knows what he’s done, out of business when he misses that shot, but an animalistic thirst for killing can’t see him retire. For that, I don’t mind that Fassbender is so methodically measured, but there’s no reason why his character couldn’t have displayed a more ruthless grit, and Daniel Craig’s early interpretation of James Bond would’ve fitted quite nicely. Hell, I think Jonathan Tucker’s Hodak from 2019’s Charlie’s Angels could’ve been more interesting. And I don’t think it’s anything to pinch a fit about, but it’s a shame the killer couldn’t have been more silent, don’t you think? The audience wouldn’t suffer, because we know what the killer is thinking all the time through his monologue, but I like the idea of the killer only using his voice as a tool in his disguise bag, and whenever he’s revealing his true self, he is silent and snakish. This year’s No One Will Save You was able to pull off a mute protagonist, and The Killer isn’t too far off making it a notch to behold of its lead character as well, but may’ve decided not to take that leap.
And if the killer had come across to me as more animalistic, it would’ve made more sense that he NEEDS to track down his facilitator, who knew he wouldn’t go quietly, and then track down the hitmen out to assure his retirement. In the version we got, I don’t conclusively know why the killer hasn’t marched off into the sunset to spend his dollars, like the lawyer (Charles Parnell) asks him when they meet, and I don’t know if there is a higher authority in the assassin-for-hire business than the lawyer either and I would’ve liked to have learnt that too. We know that the killer’s female friend got injured, which acts as part of the killer’s motivation to retaliate, but she’s barely in the movie, or mentioned to register as an important character of influence by the killer, but perhaps I’m missing something.
So, despite my personal shock at David Fincher’s limited output, as it is, I still feel like the movie is good for exploring the moves of a hitman, but not enough about its character, and allow me to turn into the Mexican girl from the Old El Paso ad for a moment, because ‘why can’t we have both?’ 🤷♀️ For a hot minute, I anticipated a grandiose finale, where the killer revealed he had missed his Parisian target on purpose to expose those who might come after him, in a sort’ve job-within-a-job spy twist, like other duplicitous movies do; (spoiler alert) Atomic Blonde and perhaps Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. At least this would’ve better justified the movie for me, and I walk away thinking that The Killer is merely okay. When your movie is a derivative, comparably to what has come before, then it’s not a good sign – The Killer is enjoyable, but dismissible, and I’ll watch it go straight through to the keeper.
3.0
P.S. The Smith’s never made it big in Australia, so they’re a critical blind spot for me, but movies sure do love ’em, ey?
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