When it comes to David Fincher, he may have made some of the most accomplished thrillers in the last three decades but has had an odd relationship with franchise or blockbuster filmmaking. From his underrated, if compromised debut Alien 3, to close attempts of directing Spider-Man and the unrealized World War Z sequel, Fincher is now as a place where he is not trying to please the masses and work on smaller projects that he is personally attracted towards, such as 2020’s Mank, written by his late father Jack Fincher.
With his latest feature, The Killer, that you can watch on Netflix, Fincher has finally made a comic book movie, but not one featuring spandex-wearing superheroes, but one about a bucket hat-wearing assassin. Played by Michael Fassbender, the titular, unnamed killer stakes out a Parisian hotel room as he waits for the perfect time to claim his target. For the first twenty minutes, the killer narrates the various activities he goes through before the hit, such as practicing yoga and listening to the Smiths; there is a playlist of the English band alongside the electronic score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.
However, once the hit commences, things go wrong and thus the killer must plan about what to do next. Bbased on the French comic book of the same name by Alexis “Matz” Nolent and Luc Jacamon, it is a storyline we have seen many times, going all the way to John Boorman’s Point Blank and Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le Samouraï, both released in 1967. Even the title itself has been used numerous times to describe this kind of movie, such as John Woo’s heroic bloodshed masterpiece.
Whereas the French source material was an ongoing publication from 1998 to 2014, the two-hour film adaptation is a simple revenge tale of a failed assassin embroiled in an international manhunt. While the personal motivation for the killer wanting to take revenge is rather cold, the persona from Fassbender’s performance is so magnetic that you can’t take your eyes off. The Killer may not be a character piece in the traditional sense, but through Fassbender’s heavy, deadpan narration that dominates most of the runtime, you get an exploration of a sociopath who maintains his calm in situations that don’t always stick to the plan.
While the script by Seven screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker has familiar trappings, it is Fincher’s stellar execution that reminds you of his high status as a thriller director. With its globe-trotting and set-pieces that showcase how tactical the killer is through stealth and infiltration, this is the closest Fincher will get to making a spy film, which may not have the sexiness of James Bond or the fun absurdity of Mission: Impossible, but there is an intensity whenever the narration is gone and there is just silence, as seen in the drawn-out opening sequence to an impactful fistfight later on. Even a dinner conversation between Fassbender and Tilda Swinton (in her one and only glorious scene) is stressful for how it will pan out.
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