'The Killer' review: David Fincher's thriller feels distant, unstimulating
David Fincher, the man behind Zodiac, Se7en, Gone Girl, and Mindhunter, among several other landmark projects in the thriller genre, is back with The Killer, which dropped on Netflix on Friday. However, unfortunately, Fincher's signature style seems sorely missing from The Killer and it feels like yet another assassin film where the plot is a footnote, and action pieces take up all the space.
This is the plot of 'The Killer'
TK follows an unnamed assassin (Michael Fassbender), famous for his meticulous, misanthropist, cold, and calculated demeanor; he believes empathy equals weakness and reckons karma and justice are non-existent. After a hit job goes haywire, he finds his girlfriend attacked by two assassins as a way of "tying up loose ends." The predictable film ends with him exacting revenge on those who have wronged him.
It's borderline exhausting to complete the film
The film's first line is, "It's amazing how physically exhausting it can be to do nothing." Turns out, that's exactly how I feel after watching the film: exhausted and cheated. The plot is not strong enough to sustain itself for two hours and the film is in a race with itself to squeeze in as many scenes as possible in about 120 minutes.
It's all bark, no bite
Despite liking the momentum TK architects in its opening moments, I couldn't stick with it with all my heart because it felt like a claptrap of bogusness, of nothing stitched together after one another. It desperately needed a soul to hold its bones together, and with the introduction of the hitman's girlfriend, the opportunity was right there, but it eventually stood terribly—and shockingly— wasted.
The plot moves of its own accord
Multiple scenes in the film say absolutely nothing; the hitman is in every scene, so we rely on his voiceovers and conversations with others to fathom what's happening. Sometimes, in other films, this void isn't apparent because the plot itself fills it, but here, the ache looms large and it's persistent. Half the time I just kept wondering, "Where's the plot progressing?"
No suspense and thrill in the drama makes everything dull
All suspicion and thrill elements are shaved off of The Killer because we're told in advance about his next steps, and so, we simply wait for him to execute them (the film's tagline is: Execution is everything)." Thus, no death startles or jostles you, nothing ever comes as a surprise, and there are no "oh no!" moments. So much for a "thriller" film.
Positives: What works for 'The Killer'?
Coming to the parts that work about TK, Fincher and his team have leaned quite heavily into the action scenes and it's evident through several stylish and slick set pieces. One specific scene has extremely dim lighting (so it looks like two silhouettes are fighting it out), but the action choreography is bright and scintillating here. One of the very few aspects that work.
Positives: The beginning of 'The Killer' draws us in
The first few parts of The Killer, where Fincher builds up the persona of the hitman, are intriguing and riveting. He performs yoga, personifies cities, loves internal monologues, speaks more to himself than to anyone else, and is a lover of music (he finds it a "useful distraction"). We want him to be caught but also wish to see him escape.
Verdict: Can skip this two-hour-long watch
I initially gravitated heavily toward The Killer because of Fincher's repertoire but The Killer is tough to toil through and watching it feels like hard work. Fassbender may commit to the job and make us buy his character, but only good actors alone cannot salvage lost causes. The Killer hits the iceberg in almost all departments and finally sinks. Verdict: 2/5 stars.
