The Killer

I was expecting a bombastic thriller from The Killer about a hitman who in his revenge killing spree mode was going to massacre everyone and everything in his way. The thing is that David Fincher is involved and The Killer is a far more "boring" drama with more or less no action, a very low body-count, no shootouts, no emotion and no story. In fact, the film relies purely on Michael Fassbender's face and Fincher's name in the director's chair, but that's not enough for me here. Fassbender has nothing to work with, the film is slow and drawn out, we get nothing of the potential assassin's repertoire, and in fact I search in vain for any element that would save the film and make me remember it even months later. I wasn't bored and the film is perfectly fine to digest, but it's just too "ordinary" and unimaginative, with no distinctive signature. (11/13/2023)

A weaker moment for David Fincher. The trailer touted an attractive thriller about a hitman, which seemed to be his strongest point, but the result is not very satisfying. The first half hour is excellent, as we watch Michael Fassbender in an apartment preparing to shoot someone with a sniper rifle. I liked the attention to detail, his preparation and the excellent monologues, which consisted of various statistics and philosophising, I that enjoyed a lot (too bad the whole film wasn't in this style), but then it takes a bit of a turn and starts to fall rather flat. The second half in particular is already quite contrived. I was kind of hoping that Fincher would focus on the hitman style, that we'd be watching a professional assassin going from target to target and various forms of defusing with high attention to detail, but this another personal revenge that doesn't stand out from the competition in anything interesting, and Fincher's signature isn't very recognizable. Fassbender's acting is good, likewise of course with the craftsmanship, but plot-wise it doesn't have any balls, there's not much action either, no satisfying twist (at least the fight in the apartment had balls, it was pleasantly gritty, with great cinematography and interestingly shot, it was very palpable, it was the highlight of the film for me), the ending is completely devoid of zest. Shame, the potential here was definitely higher. 6/10. (11/16/2023)

Since David Fincher started collaborating with Netflix, it seems like he's been making whatever he wants, and it's clear that this isn't working out. With The Killer, it feels like he was determined to make a movie about a murderer, a subject he enjoys exploring. However, the result is that Michael Fassbender spends more time narrating than actually acting. Plus, nothing really happens. The film lacks any real emotion. Sure, it's technically proficient — coldly proficient, in fact —but that's about it. (11/13/2023)

No one is special. We are all mere aberrations, but otherwise we are all basically the same. Fincher's philosophizing assassin explains the importance of overcoming boredom and the benefits of diligence. I've never seen a more relaxed and serene opening. It's a balm to the soul and a throwback to the early days of Dexter. Fake smiles, at McDonald's or at an airport counter, Fassbender's emphasis on minimalist, spare and slow speech and a thoughtful, planned out life that goes out of whack at one key moment. Andrew Kevin Walker adapts a comic book about method and the importance of staying on top of things. Fincher chooses to repeat the rules, but they're often broken, to emphasize the hero's inner turmoil, but it doesn't affect his effectiveness. A melancholy quest for revenge seems to be the opposite of John Wick, yet it offers one of the most intense fights between two very different killers, supported by Reznor’s and Ross' restrained (as usual) soundtrack. Emotionless, yet absolutely precisely realised. It is the absence of emotion or some unexpected finesse that prevents The Killer from being anything more than a precise and cool study of people who simply, don't give a... Fuck! (11/11/2023)

It's almost fascinating, mischievous fun. Watching an elite hitman who praises himself to the skies in the opening fifteen minutes, then makes a terrible mistake, but never stops doubting himself, even when it increasingly seems that the mistake was far from the last, and in fact not even the first. David Fincher has taken the liberty of making a wonderfully filmed two-hour ode to the ego, and I'm sure with each successive viewing there will be more and more little "a professional killer probably wouldn't do this in another movie" details that I didn't notice the first time around. (11/16/2023)