The Killer open with the film’s title character (played by Michael Fassbender) in an abandoned office in Paris.
He spends every day sitting in front of a window, watching the the luxury hotel across the street from him. As is evident from the film’s title and the character’s voice-over narration, the man is a professional killer. Sometimes, he kills up close-and-personal. Sometimes, he kills in a way that makes the death look like it occurred naturally. In Paris, he’s just waiting in an abandoned WeWork office with a sniper rifle. The Killer informs us that a good deal of his time is spent waiting and getting bored. Sometimes, he passes the time by listening to the Smiths. Sometimes, he takes a moment or two to glance at all of the “normies” living their lives with no idea about what’s happening in the otherwise empty office above their heads. The Killer spends a lot of time thinking about his philosophy of life and how that effects the way he does his job. Through his voice-over narration, he talks about the huge amount of people in the world. He talks about how an assassin should never improvise and how an assassin should never allow any feelings of empathy for other people.
That may sound like the beginning of a rather grim movie and certainly, there have been a lot of recent assassin films that have taken themselves way too seriously. Indeed, when the movie started with the Killer going on and on and on about how he prepares for a job, I started to have unwelcome flashbacks to Andrew Dominik’s mind-numbingly pretentious Killing Them Softly. (Really, I can only assume that everyone who was shocked by the mean-spirited ugliness of Blonde must have previously blocked Killing Them Softly from their memory.)
I need not have worried. Fortunately, The Killer is directed by David Fincher and Fincher is far too clever a director to take any the character’s nonsense seriously. The Killer may be obsessed with his inner monologue but Fincher clearly is not. From the start, Fincher pokes fun at the Killer’s self-importance by having him do things like use the names of sitcom characters whenever he has to buy a plane ticket. More often than not, the Killer’s narration is interrupted by someone proving that, despite what he may believe, the Killer does not have complete control over every situation. All of the character’s philosophizing is ultimately his way of denying that, just like the people that he is hired to kill, he is also subject to the whims of fate.
For instance, in Paris, the job gets botched. The Killer does not kill his target and, when he calls his handler (Charles Parnell), he’s informed that there probably will be consequences for his failure. When the Killer returns to his home in South America, he discovers that his girlfriend has been assaulted and left near death by two other assassins. The Killer heads to America, to confront the people that he holds responsible. Some of those people are professionals who have offices and who live in the suburbs. Some of them live on the fringes of society. But all of them, like the Killer, exist in a shadowy and amoral world that makes sense to only them and which is invisible to most of the people around them.
It’s a revenge plot, the type that has been popular for decades. (Indeed, one could easily imagine The Killer being made in the 70s with Charles Bronson playing the title role.) The story may not be unique but the action plays out with Fincher’s signature visual style and a welcome amount of wit. The Killer travels from Paris to South America to New Orleans to Florida to New York and eventually Chicago and each location has its own unique feel. As always, Fincher has a terrific eye for detail and this film is at its strongest when it captures the feel of everyone else’s life going forward while The Killer remains focused on his mission. Even the worst characters are allowed moments that humanize them. Meanwhile, The Killer is so coldly determined that he often becomes as frightening as the people that he is pursuing.
The film is dominated by Fassbender, who is in every scene and who brings a feral intensity to the character. The Killer may have a friendly smile but the viewer only has to look at his eyes to see just how shut off from any sort of human warmth that he actually is. (Indeed, the Killer only seems to genuinely care about his girlfriend and, even then, we don’t learn much about his relationship with her.) Over the course of the film, Fassbender shares scenes with Tilda Swinton, Charles Parnell, Arliss Howard, and an actress named Kerry O’Malley, who gives a sympathetic performance as a secretary who knows too much. Everyone makes a strong impression, bringing the world of The Killer to life.
The Killer can be viewed on Netflix. It’s a triumphant exercise in pure style.
Through the Shattered Lens 