You could call it a feature of the film’s existentialism, but “The Killer” increasingly is working, albeit proficiently, in a vacuum. Fassbender, a natural at playing a loner (see “Shame”), is captivating throughout because he so possesses the movie’s chief traits of guile and a deadpan sense of humor.Įverything here is tantalizingly close to calculated perfection that it comes almost as a surprise how “The Killer” ends up missing its mark. The scene, like several others in “The Killer,” is a filmmaking feat of control. (The script is based on a French graphic novel by Alexis “Matz” Nolent.)Įspecially good is a nighttime sequence set in Florida that begins and ends with a bloodthirsty dog and in between features violent hand-to-hand combat that careens through glass and walls. And there’s a kinetic thrill to seeing Fincher back in B-movie territory. Here, the director - long known for his own meticulous rigor - is working with some regular collaborators, among them screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker (“Se7en”), composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross ( “The Social Network” ) and cinematographer Erik Messerschmidt (“Mank” ). There’s much pleasure to be found in the unnamed hit man’s proficiency, just as there is in Fincher’s cool finesse. The most distinct thing about Fassbender’s killer is that, like Patrick Bateman bopped to Huey Lewis and the News, he listens exclusively to the Smiths. And the movie, too, can be withholding of anything like emotion. A revenge plot also doesn’t quite suit such a dispassionate protagonist. Much doesn’t quite fit in “The Killer.” That he even has a live-in girlfriend - we barely see her and his thoughts never again turn back to her - seems unlikely. He embarks on a location-hopping mission to eliminate those responsible, an odd twist for an assassin who, at length, preaches disaffection. In the ensuing turmoil, he races to erase his footsteps but not before a dissatisfied client has his girlfriend (Sophie Charlotte) nearly beaten to death at their clandestine Dominican Republic home. In that opening scene, he boasts of having a batting average (1.000, he brags) ‘better than Ted Williams.’ Yet the job goes badly. His position in Paris is an unused WeWork space. He doesn’t wear a trench coat or fedora he dresses like a German tourist, with a dopey bucket hat. “The Killer” is a terse, minimalist thriller in the cool, cold-hearted tradition of Jean Pierre Melville’s “Le Samouraï.” But while its methodical and solitary assassin acts and moves like cunning killers we’ve seen before, he blends into a modern background. His musings are a mix of professional tips (“Anticipate, don’t improvise”), nihilistic existential observations (“Most people refuse to believe that the great beyond is anything more than a cold, infinite void”) and sincere self-reflections (“I’m not exceptional, I’m just apart”). It’s a noir staple to open with a bit of narration, but once the nameless hit-man protagonist of David Fincher’s “The Killer” starts gabbing, he doesn’t stop.Īs Fincher’s assassin (Michael Fassbender) awaits his target from a high, unfinished floor in a Paris building that looks out on the home of his mark, his inner monologue runs with a smooth, affectless monotone.
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