Review: The Killer

Directed by: David Fincher

Written by: Andrew Kevin Walker

Starring: Michael Fassbender, Arliss Howard, Charles Parnell, Kerry O’Malley, Sala Baker

Rating: [4.5/5]

Screwing up at our job will happen to everyone, an inevitability that comes natural to our human inability to maintain perfection. Hopefully the particular mess up does not have large negative effects on anyone impacted, but depending on the circumstance, the employee should have a second chance to rectify that mistake. This may be the case in most workplaces, but as displayed in The Killer, this mercy does not exist in the world of contract killing as it takes us into a story of revenge but also one with such a unique perspective on this line of work. 

Set to take out a hit in Paris, The Killer (Michael Fassbender) lines up everything to complete the job as he usually does. However, something goes wrong and he misses, which has him flee and as he returns home where he learns a hit has been put out on him to clean up the miss leading to the harm of his girlfriend. Now, taking whatever clues he can obtain, he seeks to find who caused this and will enact his revenge. 

Life as a contract killer or hit man has mostly received a glamorous expectation where they typically carry this suave bravado and take care of jobs in an entertaining way, because most of the actions we see occur in fictional storytelling. However, like many jobs there are monotonous periods that make it mind-numbingly boring, which The Killer has its fascination in depicting. A decision that may puzzle some, but gets right at the root of what David Fincher wants to explore and it makes for such a fascinating viewing experience. 

Never given a name, we follow The Killer through each step of what transpires in the film and essentially live within his thoughts from beginning to end. We hear them also like a daily journal entry where he painstakingly goes through his process in such a calculated manner. This happens at its peak right in the opening sequence, where he goes over every detail of his set-up and just sits and stares out of his window waiting for his target to get in range for the kill shot. As he continually waits, we hear The Killer just contemplates what he does for a living with him spouting my favorite line of the entire film: “When was my last quiet drowning?” A line that takes away all the glamour and exhibits life as a hit man serves as just another job for this man. Through his inner thoughts, he explains the logic in everything he does, which further displays the amount of thought and planning that goes into this line of work. From the reasons he decides to dress like a German tourist and even to the McDonald’s meal he eats, everything has a calculated reason for it.

This pristine efficiency in The Killer’s approach very much matches David Fincher’s particular aesthetic and the cinematography by Erik Messerschmidt. While following such a cold individual, the film matches it with the visual representation of the film. Not much warmth gets felt here, but this ruthlessly clean and purposeful look that matches the level of calculation of our lead character here. It becomes about the process and reaching the final execution much more than anything else. This proves evidently clear when he misfires and strategically does everything he needs to do to avoid police detection and get out of the country because he knows what awaits him. 

With all the coldness and the lack of emotion of this feature, this film stands out in probably being David Fincher’s funniest movie. The way Fassbender delivers some of these lines in the driest manner genuinely caused me to laugh on many occasions. Detached from any larger meaning, his views on his job and the efficiency required to complete makes his blunders objectively hilarious, especially in the opening scene. He goes through all of this detail only to massively screw up and all he has to offer to himself is a single expletive. This along with his many musings about the world and human psychology makes The Killer undoubtedly the funniest character ever to appear in a Fincher film, making him quite the memorable individual despite not even having a name. 

Despite the methodical nature of this film, plenty of sloppiness gets introduced as things do not always go to plan. These moments allow for the sound design of the film to shine, specifically when he fights one of the assassins in their Florida home. A brutal fight sequence that makes you really feel the pain being inflicted as the two combatants seek to kill each other. This particular scene saw the score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross drop and just have the raw brutality take hold, allowing for a tremendous sequence overall. This mix between this specificity and messiness exhibits the difference between how even someone as meticulous The Killer can plan as much as he can but then reality sets in and he needs to adjust.

Completely different from what one would suspect a Fincher film centered on a hit man would look like, The Killer provides something quite refreshing and quite funny. Fincher inject his style and pretty much matches the cadence of this main character in how they approach their crafts. It leads to such an enjoyable film as we watch this Killer enact his revenge and go about his process to display exactly why he has found so much success in this line of work for so long.