This icily and precisely controlled action/thriller from director David Fincher doesn’t quite rank amongst his masterworks (Fight Club, Gone Girl, Zodiac, Seven, The Game). However, like every other Fincher movie, it’s still plenty interesting and well-made to be worthwhile. The Killer is a gritty, down-and-dirty movie whose overall smooth and occasionally slow pacing is sporadically interrupted by sudden, intense, and viscerally thrilling bursts of action and violence. Though it usually and purposefully avoids exhibiting the humanity that its sociopathic protagonist lacks, the film still mostly engrosses its audience through its expert filmmaking and endlessly cold intensity.
The film (which is based on the graphic novel series by Alexis Nolent and Luc Jacamon) stars Michael Fassbender as a hitman who has to survive the consequences of disappointing his employers after botching his latest job. The story is simple, allowing plenty of room to explore Fassbender’s character, working methods, and philosophies on his life and career. As he works a job during the film’s opening twenty-minute sequence, his internal monologue is constantly heard by way of a coherent yet intentionally rambling and heavily dry voice-over. These interior thoughts are then heard in lesser amounts throughout the remainder of the film, consistently providing insight into the character’s detached existence.
Fassbender never ceases to be fully committed to or believable in his role. His calm, mechanical, and cooly disciplined performance serves screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker’s (Seven) observational and reserved writing style quite well. The Killer is very much a character piece about a man who near-completely lacks all human character outside of his drive to efficiently and successfully do his work.
The action sequences are all skillfully top-notch. While the majority of the film is intentionally emotionless, the chase and fight scenes notably complement this by putting the audience right into the middle of the action. The hypnotically calm (sometimes to the point of being numbing) tone that resides over most of the movie is consistently offset by brief and aggressive flashes of conflict and violence that recharge and reinvigorate the audience’s interest in and care toward what happens to the film’s challengingly unrelatable lead character. It should be noted that The Killer contains one of the most astonishing and brutal hand-to-hand fight scenes of any movie in recent memory.
If The Killer has a primary fault, it’s in the meticulous, exhausting, and painstaking care it takes in communicating its protagonist’s lack of empathy. This is made clear in the first five minutes, and the point is constantly and tiringly drilled home throughout the rest of the movie. To call it redundant is an understatement, but it’s hard not to question whether or not it is Fincher’s intention to wear his audience down to the point that it catches itself agreeing with or even thinking like Fassbender’s primarily unredeemable character. Though the film’s chilly communication of Fassbender’s soulless existence largely produces an effective result, it does, on occasion, get rather old, obvious, and uninteresting.
The Killer is an overall fascinating film that balances moments of dullness with moments of extreme and unforgettable excitement. Its execution can sometimes be a bit of a chore to experience. However, the film has enough talent behind it and enough merits to its production that it still manages to be a unique and engaging experience that allows you to step outside of your own reality for a couple of hours and walk in the shoes of a predominantly heartless killer.
GRADE: B+
