Sommerleigh Pollonais, Senior Writer
Plot: After a fateful near-miss, an assassin battles his employers and himself on an international manhunt he insists isn’t personal.
Review: There’s something about watching a lone assassin do his/her thing that audiences eat up; the mega success that is the John Wick franchise is a great example of this. But Wick isn’t the only one or the only style of this premise. Some of these tend to be more low-key delivering a slow burn and a stoic lead that walks the thin line of hero or villain. And this is what we get with The Killer directed by David Fincher (Se7en, Fight Club, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo).
I’ll start off by saying the film is not going to be for everyone. It is almost an anthesis of the John Wick movies which are much faster paced and deliberately designed with a more fantastical, almost mythological narrative. The Killer is the other side of the coin delivering a story that is very bare bones in terms of any large action sequences, instead choosing to focus more on the mindset of Michael Fassbender’s Killer (his character is never named).
Most of the dialogue takes place in his head where he exposits what he thinks of the world, the people he’s hired to kill and his self-made list of rules he abides by while on a job. Whether or not you’ll agree with him, or his choices, is also a question audiences may find themselves asking as he is not what you could easily call “a good person”. This Killer has his reasons for doing what he does but the way he goes about it isn’t what I would call heroic. This is a man who will kill anyone to achieve his goal and there were victims that didn’t feel like they deserved their grisly demise. That said, Fassbender totally sells himself as a single-minded ruthlessly efficient assassin.
Michael Fassbender is almost inhuman in the role, coming across like a mix of his character David in Prometheus and coincidentally a character played by another actor that shares his first name, Michael C. Hall, the serial killer anti-hero Dexter in the titular TV series. Even with the narrations, you never truly get a sense that you know what the Killer’s thinking, making his character unpredictable and genuinely intimidating. A few other standouts here for me were Kerry O’Malley as Dolores and Tilda Swinton as The Expert. Both women made very impactful use of their short screen time.
Sound design is not something that usually jumps out at me, but Fincher’s choices here blew me away. Case in point is the way the sound would filter in and out when the Killer had his earbuds in, changing the perspective from what he was hearing to what you would hear if you were in the room with him. The fight sequence between him and the Brute (Sala Baker) and the soundtrack playing all worked beautifully. Add to that the cinematography and a pacing that matched the methodical nature of the story’s protagonist and The Killer checked a lot of boxes for me and overall delivered a very effective thriller.
Now I’m sure the lack of character exploration and the bare bones nature of the narrative won’t resonate with everyone. Personally, I didn’t mind it, as again I found it matched the nature of the character and the world he lives in. Everyone here lives a double life, hiding their true nature from those around them, including the Killer, so not knowing anything about them beyond the surface didn’t bother me.
Maybe it’s because I consider myself a detailed oriented person or maybe it’s because I’m burnt out on unnecessarily bloated narratives, whatever the reason, David Fincher’s surgeon-like approach to The Killer was just what the doctor ordered. I’m curious to see if the graphic novel it’s based off carries a similar tone but whatever the case, this is top notch thriller in my book and one of Fincher’s best to date.
Sommer’s Score: 8 out of 10
Have you seen The Killer? What did you think of it? And you can check off more assassin film reviews on your hit list by checking the reviews below:
Sommerleigh of the House Pollonais. First of Her Name. Sushi Lover, Queen of Horror Movies, Comic Books and Binge-Watching Netflix. Mother of two beautiful black cats named Vader and Kylo. I think eating Popcorn at the movies should be mandatory, PS4 makes the best games ever, and I’ll be talking about movies until the zombie apocalypse comes. Double Tap Baby! Read More