If you go into The Killer expecting a standard hitman/revenge movie then I don't think you're going to enjoy it. You cannot go into this with certain expectations, and I would quickly warn people who may assume that they're going to have a perfect blend of cool and controlled David Fincher style and cool and controlled lead character. While things may seem to match up on the surface, the whole thing is actually an amusing dark comedy that shows us someone holding on to their superb natural instincts while everything else starts to slip through their fingers.
Michael Fassbender stars as The Killer. He lives by a number of rules that we hear repeated, mantra-like, in voiceover narration. "Stick to your plan. Anticipate, don't improvise. Trust no one. Never yield an advantage. Fight only the battle you're paid to fight." He also believes that you should forbid empathy, because empathy is a weakness. "Empathy is vulnerability". When a job goes wrong, however, The Killer ends up seeking revenge, and this shows us how often he breaks his own rules. He's not actually that good at living by his own code, but repeating it to himself seems to show how often he spends time convincing himself that he belongs in the life he has chosen.
Adapted from a graphic novel series by Alexis Nolent and Luc Jacamon, this is a long-overdue opportunity for writer Andrew Kevin Walker and director Fincher to fully collaborate again. The two last worked together on the superb Seven, but it's interesting to view The Killer as something that works as very much a companion piece to Fight Club. The script isn't as packed with quotable dialogue, but everything here, whether spoken word or silent expression/movement, works exactly as intended. You get repeated mantras that are used for self-delusion (and are lies), you get the use of corporations assisting the hasty demise of characters, and you have an apparent code of ethics that ends up warped and broken as a main character strives towards what ends up being their ultimate goal. It's also a film that may well be taken by many viewers as something it very much isn't. Maybe.
Fassbender feels like he was born for this role, a captivating presence able to keep his face completely blank as he interacts with people he doesn't view worthy of full engagement. He looks capable enough when it comes to the physical side of things, and the juxtaposition of how things play out onscreen and how the character comments on his own approach becomes funnier and funnier as the divide between perception and reality gets bigger. Charles Parnell and Kerry O'Malley shine in a couple of key scenes, Sala Baker casts an impressively large shadow as a potential target named "The Brute", and both Arliss Howard and Tilda Swinton have fantastic moments in the third act, the latter coming seriously close to stealing the movie with her blend of calm defiance and slight regret.
Hilariously soundtracked by a selection of tunes from The Smiths, there's also extra laughs mined from Fincher upending some action movie standards. Whether or not people enjoy the joke is a different matter, but I liked watching a chase sequence that wasn't really a chase, miscalculations made by someone who needs to rely on precision, and a messy fight that was as dark and disorientating as it might feel when right in the middle of it.
I've already seen many people dismiss this as a fairly empty and pointless work, a lesser entry from a master director, but I would respectfully disagree. It's not a full return to form, considering how high the Fincher highs are, but I think it's his best film in over a decade (note, I have STILL to see Mank, just too many movies and never enough hours in every day). It will be interesting to see if others start to agree with me as more time passes.
8/10
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