The Killer (2023)

Watched 11/12/23 (Netflix)

Long found on my most anticipated list for the last few years since announcement, I somehow had the opposite experience per usual as I actually found myself less excited as last few weeks before release rolled around. In retrospect, that seems silly, but I recognize now it was a symptom of no fanfare by Netflix (never saw more than a 1-minute teaser, which ended up being a boon to me as I was surprised by an early turn this one takes), not being able to see this in theaters, and having so many other people being able to see this before me in theaters. I still wish that I had been able to see this in theaters and am going to continue to be frustrated by this upon each rewatch I am sure, but Fincher and Fassbender’s long-awaited return delivered and exceeded my expectations thoroughly.

It’s not a terribly original screenplay, adapting an eponymous French graphic novel series which clearly owes a lot of debt to the lone assassin stories before it. But it has enough wit and it is directed with such brilliant lighting and sound design that it felt wholly original to me. While feeling the influence of things like Soderbergh’s Haywire (a favorite of mine despite its cancelled star) and many a Bond story, I couldn’t help but think that this is quite possibly my favorite David Fincher movie. It may also be my favorite movie of the year. Recency bias is a true blue predicament that has reared its head for me with movies in years past, so we’ll see, but as of this moment this is sitting near the top.

Fincher has long been a director I love, but that love was stronger when I first watched his dark, dank films in early high school, when I was also a bit more dark and dank. I was a different person then and had different interests. Nowadays my passion for such movies as Fight Club and The Social Network is easily eclipsed by the respect factor. I rewatched Zodiac recently and while wholly impressed, did not find myself connecting or responding emotionally as I did with this new joint. Those are undeniably great movies, but they’re not personal favorites. With the exception of Se7en, they don’t make me feel much. The terrorism section in Fight Club and the endlessly, at times almost annoyingly rhythmic dialogue in Network hold me back from calling them perfect movies. They just have elements that I no longer enjoy due to personal interests.

One thing that has not changed since I was in early high school is a weakness for revenge stories. And boy is this a good one. I had absolutely no idea that revenge was inherent to the plot of this. In fact, part of my lead-up worries with this movie stemmed from thinking the plot would revolve around killing innocent people over and over again. As if Kevin Spacey’s John Doe had been made into a main character. Thankfully, that was not the case. Se7en is almost certainly my second-favorite Fincher behind this, and a large part of that love is the sick, eventually revenge-fueled mode that various characters operate in. But if John Doe had been the main character, I would have found it more difficult to get behind.

The titular Killer may not be the easiest to identify with, somehow more odd than many of Fincher’s protagonists, but I got behind him as soon as they fucked with his beautiful DR house and his even more beautiful wife. And as funny as that opening act is, with such a self-serious assassin almost endlessly pontificating about his attention to detail before gloriously fucking up, Fassbender nails the art of being a scary motherfucker. From the moment you realize that someone went after his love interest, you know that they made a mistake. You’re not sure if The Killer will succeed on his revenge tour, but you’re sure it isn’t gonna be pretty no matter what happens.

And then it’s simultaneously one of the ugliest and most beautiful movies of the year. Fassbender’s character has his retribution, debts are paid in the form of souls leaving bodies, and we watch as Fincher assembles a real barnburner by picking exactly the right mood, voiceover, lighting, fight choreography, and sound design. From the moment The Killer deploys a recycling bin and nail gun in equally hilarious and terrifying measure, you know you’re in for something that’s hard to look away from. The score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, being silly to doubt at this point, provides the perfectly subtle extra depth to the adventure, enhancing the quietest moments with otherworldly emanations.

It’s not so much what The Killer does as it is how he does it. You’ve seen this plot before, but much like Haywire, another Fassbender staple, you haven’t seen it quite as steeped in confident style and vision. Take “The Fight”, my personal favorite scene of the movie. Combining some of this year’s most visceral, unflinching action with an uncomfortably moist, almost mystical venue sees Fincher manage to make what is almost certainly his second best scene ever for me, surrendering only to “What’s in the box?” So rarely do you see a director take such odd, off-the-wall sound cues and infuse them into such a vision of brutality and dance. Every movement, despite the darkness drenching the area, is perfectly displayed and felt, as if you’re there in the room and are also thrown off by the Reznor and Ross sounds almost paralyzing Fassbender’s assassin as he attemps to fight The Brute, who lives up to his name and then some. And the There’s Something About Mary dog fake-out plus the Old English just when you forgot about it got one of my biggest smiles of the movie. Brilliant.

How equally idiotic and brilliant Fassbender is is such a cool move for a director who clearly sees a bit of himself in the character from what I gather via interviews. Making The Killer such a dangerous, calculating fuckup provides just the right amount of humor and appreciation and underdog attraction that it made the movie for me, never being able to anticipate what would come next but being pleased no matter what odd turn the film took. It’s all so fine-tuned in its craftmanship that any qualm I had regarding the lack of killing at the ending gave way to my satisfaction with how perfectly pretty the final few shots are. We get to see the DR house in all of its glory opposed to the first time we saw it. The beauty is cathartic after such an ugly sequence of kills. The Killer lives to fight another day. I would take a sequel in a heartbeat, though I doubt Fincher would sign up for that. 

For as video-gamey as the confrontations and kills are, they’re so strangely balanced by increasingly interesting, stupidly funny voiceover work that is never afraid to break the fourth wall even harder by getting interrupted or discussing the plugging in of diegetic music which is such a funny poke at the audience in a world where we get so many embarrassingly generic and stupid needle drops by embarrassingly generic and stupid filmmakers. OF COURSE The Killer, a bit of a dumb guy himself, would listen to something offbeat while missing an elaborately, painfully planned but what could have been simple assassination. Having us hear him listening to it and not having something like Beastie Boys play in only the audience’s reality was such a godsend.

In summary, this was such a deceptively rich, multi-faceted approach to a familiar thing that I was caught off guard. It’s an amazing hangout movie, a kinetic action movie, and a beautiful portrait of a wide range of international locations that are not shot on a green screen thank God! Between Mank and The Killer, I remain frustrated by Netflix but grow ever fonder of David Fincher.

I do hope that someday Disney loses the rights to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Fincher somehow gets to make his version. Can you imagine if he made that movie with Michael Fassbender and Ben Affleck?

9.75/10