"The Killer" is everything you'd expect from a David Fincher film, which may not be a good thing at this point in his career. It's very much in the mold of his earlier work like "Fight Club" and "Seven" - very concerned with visceral style and masculine violence. The alienated hit man lead, played by Michael Fassbender, is good at his job and fun to watch. The story is based on a French comic book series, and has a simple, straightforward narrative of revenge and retribution - well, at least it looks that way at first.
The unnamed Killer is introduced to us while he's preparing for his next job. Through his constantly running narration, we learn that the Killer lives a very disciplined, very restrained lifestyle that's all about maintaining his professionalism and dedication to his work. He meticulously describes every step in his routine, from his workout regimen to weapons maintenance. Unfortunately, the job goes wrong and he's forced to flee the scene. His employers retaliate by sending people to his home in the Dominican Republic, where the killer's girlfriend ends up in the crossfire. This results in the Killer going on a rampage to find and kill everyone he deems responsible - his handler (Charles Parnell), the people who hurt his girlfriend, The Expert and The Brute, (Tilda Swinton, Sala Baker), and the mysterious Client (Arliss Howard).
Fincher hasn't lost a step when it comes to constructing action and suspense sequences. There are so many individual pieces of "The Killer" that are as good as anything he's ever made - the wonderfully tactile Florida fight scene with Sala Baker, the opening scenes with the Killer on the job, and the whole sequence where a poor, doomed secretary named Dolores (Kerry O'Malley) crosses paths with the Killer. Just because the narrative is simple doesn't mean it's not satisfying to watch play out. And after so many years of slick John Wick fight scenes, it's a treat to see a Fincher deliver his far more effective, impactful execution of similar material. There's so much storytelling and character detail packed into every encounter, and a good amount of wry humor too.
In the end "The Killer" is a character study at its core, and it's one that spends a good amount of time dismantling the cool image of the typical movie contract killer. Unlike Melville's "Le Samourai," or Refn's "Drive," the point is not to get you to sympathize with the protagonist, but to get you to realize how far the Killer is from the cool facade that he's constructed. We watch him screw up and break his own rules repeatedly. However, just as telling are the little details like his obsession with The Smiths and his habit of using ancient sitcom characters' names for aliases. Fassbender is very good in the role, after a long break from acting. He's got the requisite cool factor, but also nails the moments where, vitally, the Killer is absolutely not cool.
That brings us to Tilda Swinton as the Expert, who gives the best performance in the film by far, and lends the third act a welcome boost when she appears. As with many other films, I'm inclined to like "The Killer" more because Swinton is so good in it. The Expert is the bon vivant to the Killer's ascetic, the contrasting element that helps illuminate all the ways in which he's lacking. She essentially takes over the story for a while because her dialogue replaces his narration, and makes it clear that while the Killer is the protagonist, we really shouldn't be rooting for him.
I liked "The Killer" an awful lot, but I'm concerned that David Fincher is making this kind of movie again. He's revisited similar subjects and themes many times over his career, but "The Killer" feels like a genre exercise in a way that is extremely safe. There's not much bite to the cultural commentary, not much novel about the filmmaking, and way too much of it feels familiar. It's unambitious, which bothers me a lot, because Fincher has always, dependably, been the kind of filmmaker who pushes buttons. Then again, if he just wants to blow off some steam, homage some of the greats, and have a little fun, who am I to say that he shouldn't?
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