PicoBlog

7/10

With Fight Club, David Fincher made a classic satire destined to be one of those movies misunderstood by generations of young men who take the destructive lead character’s words at face value and idolize him as a role model. Besides Fight Club, the poster of which has adorned many a college dorm room, you can add the likes of Scarface, The Wolf of Wall Street, and Joker to this list.

Fincher’s latest, The Killer, is his first since Fight Club that offers up such a character in the form of Michael Fassbender’s unnamed assassin, listed in the credits only as “The Killer”. From a screenplay by Andrew Kevin Walker and based on the French graphic novel series of the same name, written by Alexis “Matz” Nolent and illustrated by Luc Jacamon, The Killer finds Fassbender’s professional hitman botching his latest assignment and pursuing a vendetta on both sides of the Atlantic after his romantic partner is attacked in retribution.

The film’s highlight is its opening act, in which Fassbender spends more than a week armed with a sniper rifle, watching a Paris hotel room and waiting for his target to appear. Throughout these scenes we hear The Killer’s internal monologue, filled to the brim with memorable quotes and maxims we’ll surely be seeing in images on social media for years to come. The Killer expounds to us his nihilistic worldview and philosophy, which is based on being cold, methodical, and emotionally detached from his work. Here are some examples:

• “Of those who like to put their faith in the inherent goodness of mankind, I have to ask: Based on what, exactly?”

• “My process is purely logistical, narrowly focused by design. I'm not here to take sides. It's not my place to formulate any opinion. No one who can afford me needs to waste time winning me to some cause. I serve no god, or country. I fly no flag. If I'm effective, it's because of one simple fact: I. Don't. Give. A. Fuck.”

• “From the beginning of history, the few have always exploited the many. This is the cornerstone of civilization. The blood in the mortar that binds all bricks. Whatever it takes, make sure you're one of the few, not one of the many.”

• “Stick to your plan. Anticipate, don't improvise. Trust no one. Never yield an advantage. Fight only the battle you're paid to fight.”

• “Forbid empathy. Empathy is weakness. Weakness is vulnerability.”

You get the picture. It’s an embrace of the ruthless, hyper-individualist outlook built into capitalism. The Killer’s mentality is reminiscent of two other movie characters who murder in the name of profit, both coincidentally portrayed by Al Pacino. The first is Tony Montana in Scarface: “Who put this thing together? Me, that’s who! Who do I trust? Me!” The second is Michael Corleone in The Godfather: “It’s not personal. It’s strictly business.” In a dog-eat-dog world, you have to look out for number one. The Killer spends many minutes before his first targeted kill building up his aura as an icy, detached, highly capable killer.

All that hype is what makes it so blackly comedic when The Killer takes his shot at last and utterly fails his mission. A recurring source of amusement is the divergence between the The Killer’s self-assured internal monologue and his frequently screwing things up in reality. Doubtless all this will go over the heads of impressionable (male) viewers who will only see Fassbender being an unflappable badass, but for anyone paying attention the satirical intent is clear. I also laughed at The Killer using the names of old sitcom characters for his numerous fake identities—perhaps confident none of the young workers at airports and car rental agencies will recognize these decades-old pop culture references.

If the rest of the film doesn’t fully live up to the promise of its opening monologue—nothing else surpasses it, and there are some pedestrian stretches between kills—Fincher maintains the viewer’s interest with little details about the life of a professional killer, Fassbender’s recurring monologues, and humour wrung from things like The Killer destroying a cellphone after every time he makes a call. There’s a fun fight scene in the middle set in Florida, and a memorable “last supper” of whiskey with “The Expert” (Tilda Swinton) in New York. Fincher’s direction is great and atmospheric as always, backed up by music from frequent collaborators Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. While it doesn’t quite reach the upper echelons of Fincher’s work, this is a solid film overall.

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