Review: The Killer

Image courtesy of Netflix.

 

David Fincher's "The Killer" is a lean and stylish thriller that struck me as one of a highly personal nature to its creator. Fincher is known as being a student of the Stanley Kubrick school of perfectionism and numerous takes, and this film portrays a character who lives by that code - he's a hired assassin who lives rigidly by a set of strict rules - but one day throws it all to the wind. There are likely to be debates as to whether this is intentional.

The film, based on a graphic novel by Alexis Matz Nolent, opens as the unnamed killer is on assignment in Paris, where he is holed up in a seemingly abandoned WeWork studio and waiting for his latest target to appear in an apartment across the street. During this time, he tells us in monotone voiceover about the tricks of his trade ("avoid empathy") while also making excuses for his line of work (he notes that the killings in which he takes part are a drop in the bucket when you consider how many people are born and die each second).

But after he misses his shot, accidentally (or not?) shooting another person rather than his target, he notes, "This is new." And that statement can apply to both the Killer's own personal experiences - we assume he's never missed a shot before - but also the subgenre in which this film exists. "The Killer" follows a storyline that feels overly familiar, and yet this one isn't quite like any other.

Upon arriving in Santa Domingo, where the Killer has his hideout, he realizes that his home has been broken into and finds out that his girlfriend has been hospitalized after being paid a brutal visit by a pair of assassins looking to clean up the situation after the botched hit. The Killer has long lived by the mantra of not injecting personal feelings into his work but, well, this situation is new to him and so he goes on a mission of revenge to take out those involved in the deal who might try to make another attempt on his or his girlfriend's life.

His travels take him all over the United States, where he pays bloody visits to his point of contact (Charles Parnell); a man known as the Brute (Sala Baker), who tangles with the Killer in a visceral and incredibly choreographed fight scene; and another assassin known as the Expert (Tilda Swinton, who gets a lot of mileage out of her cameo appearance).

While this all might sound run-of-the-mill, it's anything but, not only because of the film's sleek visual style and great use of lighting, but also due to the deadpan humor that makes it feel so different from other films of its type. There's a great joke told by the Expert to the Killer involving a hunter and a bear that also serves as some sort of metaphor for the stage at which the titular character finds himself in life. Music by The Smiths acts as a morbidly amusing running commentary on the action, and there's a great running joke in which the Killer uses the names of famous TV show characters as his aliases. 

Then, there's the surprising ending, during which the Killer pays a visit to the man (Arliss Howard) whose involvement started the entire scenario. He's a billionaire living in a high-rise apartment, where the Killer slinks in unnoticed. I won't give anything away, but how this scene plays out is sure to cause some debate. There's also a final shot involving a twitching eye and the Killer's mention of society's few and many that is introduced early in the film and brought up once more in the finale that is intriguing. As usual,

Fincher is not one to spell out his intentions, and this open-ended culmination feels right considering all that has come before it.

Fincher is among the better current crop of American filmmakers. His "Zodiac" and "The Social Network" are masterpieces and I have high regard for "Fight Club," "Seven," "Mank" and, yes, the underrated "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button." While "The Killer" might not quite be on the level of those great movies, I disagree with some assertions that it's a minor Fincher movie. 

There are a lot of interesting things going on here and it's a film made by an obsessive that provides a fair amount of material to obsess about. For a movie this dark and bleak, "The Killer" is often wickedly funny and there's a bit of pointed late-capitalist satire as well as some terrific set pieces (the fight scene and Fassbender and Swinton's tete a tete at a restaurant) and an intriguing air of mystery surrounding its lead character and, perhaps, even human nature on the whole. The film is a great example of a filmmaker taking his typical style and well-trodden subject matter and doing something new with them.