Capsule Review: The Killer (2023)

At the beginning of David Fincher’s The Killer, the movie opens with the titular hitman (Michael Fassbender) waiting patiently for his target to show up from across the building. The location takes place in Paris, and from there, we hear voiceover narrations and monologues from the hitman. Waiting, waiting and waiting as Fincher depicts the scene like a procedural. The methodical approach that we see in Fassbender’s character and the way he does things cautiously in his routines — eating McDonald’s and doing some yoga stretches — clearly reflects Fincher’s signature precision directorial style.

The movie also includes a crisply edited sequence of Fassbender’s character evading the police while riding on his motorcycle and strategically disposing of the rifle parts and some of the belongings in different locations. Credits go to Fincher’s meticulous way of staging the smooth getaway.

And for a while there, The Killer looks as if the movie is heading in the right direction. Fincher’s trademark clinical visual sheen, coupled with low-key lighting and shadows and a distinct colour palette are all here. The opening scene is easily the best part of the movie, and interestingly, Fincher even incorporates a subtle touch of pitch-black comedy addressing the mundane nature of a killer’s job.

But Fincher, who directed Se7en‘s Andrew Kevin Walker’s screenplay (the movie is based on the French graphic novel series of the same name) gets a surprisingly hollow story. We learn the killer’s job goes awry and he manages to flee the scene without raising any suspicion, especially from the police. But his failure costs him dearly when he finds out his girlfriend (Sophie Charlotte) back home in his hideout in the Dominican Republic has been brutally assaulted.

The attack on his girlfriend means it becomes all personal for the killer to retaliate. What follows next is the cities-hopping revenge mission from New Orleans to Florida, New York and Chicago as he seeks whoever is responsible for the attack. Such a plot should have been thrilling but Fincher isn’t interested in giving us what we want.

Instead, he subverts our expectations by turning the killing/revenge plot into an antithesis of a genre movie. The pace slacks as the movie goes on. It’s all drab and anaemic, complete with Fassbender’s repeated voiceovers of  “Stick to the plan. Anticipate, don’t improvise. Trust no one.” which grows increasingly frustrating to watch. It seems to me that Fincher wants to sink deeper into the psyche of how a killer actually works in his profession. And he mirrors that in his movie’s purposefully cold and muted storytelling approach. Don’t expect something cool, say someone like Keanu Reeves’ John Wick in the John Wick quadrilogy or Chow Yun-Fat’s assassin role in John Woo’s 1989 similarly-titled but unrelated genre classic.

Still, that doesn’t mean it has to be this narratively mundane. The movie does contain some worthwhile moments other than the opening sequence, notably the brutal home-fight setpiece that Fincher and cinematographer Erik Messerschmidt use the dim lighting and dark shadows to its advantage.

I was hoping this movie would be Fincher’s return to form after the overrated black-and-white biopic in Mank. The Killer is a prime example where technical proficiency and stylish visuals and to a certain extent, Fassbender’s perfectly-typecast nameless killer role aren’t enough to overcome the movie’s overall dull and uninvolving story.

The Killer is currently streaming on Netflix.