On top of these rules, contract killing requires the utmost patience. The wait for the perfect timing to strike is long and physically taxing. Hence, one must always practice keeping himself calm. The Killer does yoga; he keeps a heart rate monitor watch and an iPod full of The Smiths songs to make sure that he’s focused on the tasks at hand.
But despite his meticulous mental and physical preparation, The Killer failed a mission given to him by his handler, Hodge (Charles Parnell). His client is obviously unhappy about it. So Hodge instructed a group of assassins (Tilda Swinton and Sala Baker) to dispatch The Killer and his girlfriend (Sophie Charlotte) to tie up loose ends.
The Killer is a flex on David Fincher’s gift to craft a fascinating anti-hero. Fincher doesn’t really write his own films, but his characters are consistently bold, savage, and stoic, if not white, cool, and manly. They have these motives and ideals that make it hard to categorize them as good or evil.
Michael Fassbender’s The Killer is evidently flawed because of his chosen profession. We follow him as he enacts revenge on Hodge and his associates, all the while feeding us with his thoughts about his job and the unremarkableness of his life. In some moments in between his soliloquy, The Killer shows us a glimpse of his humanity and soul. And that kind of eases us into subscribing to his motives and rooting for his success. But we’re unnoticeably further justifying the killer’s unethical actions.
It kind of reminds me of David Fincher’s answers to incels worshiping Tyler Durden in Fight Club. He said in an interview that he doesn’t know how to respond and help people who can’t understand his characters. A cold-hearted response, yet true in the sense that we don’t always have to do mental gymnastics on Fincher’s characters. Sometimes, they’re just plain bad influences. Almost all of his stories are about heartless monsters and their defeat and amorality behind the facade of their so-called success.
So despite Fincher's doing his best to mock the triteness of movie hitmen for the whole 118 minutes, The Killer might also be his unofficial response to our softness in having empathy for people that clearly don't deserve it. Of course, the ramifications of withholding empathy from someone are detrimental, but the film is also saying that freely giving it to everyone is equally dangerous.
Seeing The Killer without ruminating on the main character will yield no satisfaction. It’s admittedly boring and slow. Hence, it’s important to really see the value in a story about a perfectionist left with no choice but to break his rules to survive. Michael Fassbender made it all bearable and convincing as he once again channeled a humanoid persona a la David from Prometheus. There are also occasional and surprising heart-pounding moments to keep you engaged before your mind wanders too far.
I would say that The Killer is not on par with Zodiac, Gone Girl, and The Social Network. As a whole, there’s really nothing new here. It still looks awfully the same vis-à-vis his other films, with The Killer being just more pensive than definitive. But it earned its place in David Fincher’s filmography for recognizing action tropes and pulling Fincher back to stories about psychopaths and serial killers after Mank.
3/5
