Using an experienced assassin as the canvas for his latest project, David Fincher’s “The Killer” is a methodical recycling of death and espionage with its own glaze of moral scrutiny. As Fincher’s appointed killer, played by Michael Fassbender, travels from one stash house to another while handling a vendetta, his methods abide by one rule: “stick to the plan.”
A system that he uses in both profession and leisure, he is unable to escape this attitude, much like the untimely fates of those he’s assigned to take out. The film opens in a scenic Paris locale where it takes its time to hammer this principle into the psyche of the viewer before the killings ensue.
Stalking outside a window while awaiting the arrival of his next target, the life of an assassin consists of one monotonous task after another. Sleep is procedural and his nightly cycle is broken up to avoid missing any assignments.
Food provides energy so whether it be a boiled egg or the occasional protein shake, his intake serves only one principle: to sustain his more active and professional activities.
A yoga routine keeps him nimble and exercise maintains the muscles which allows him to carry out his mission with absolute certainty. Showing the endless routine of his life makes for a clear incentive that the job will be finished — until it isn’t.
Fincher’s talent for exposing the anxiety in his characters begins to show as the hitman flees to one of his hideouts in the Dominican Republic in the wake of a botched job. Swapping plane tickets and outfits to avoid any chance of capture, his paranoid stigma eventually leads him back home to the aftermath of a home invasion.
Introduced to the hitman’s only humanizing relationship with a girl named Magdala, her near-death experience is a brutal sign of what can happen when the system is ruptured. Offering an assurance that this “mistake” won’t ever be allowed to happen again, he appoints his own mission—one of vengeance to those who have hurt the person closest to him.
Now, over 60 years old with 11 films under his belt as a director, Fincher’s legacy is defined by a perfectionist attitude which makes it surprising that his latest film wasn’t one of his first.
From a serial killer epic in 2007’s “Zodiac” to his 1999 cult classic in “Fight Club,” Fincher shocked viewers through obscene displays of moral corruption. Death and demise afoot, passive audiences stood against his style while slowly realizing that it was unlike anything they had or could see at the time.
Growing to love the artist for his demented narratives, a desire has since grown, and with it a choice for Fincher to favor audience preferences, or once again, undercut their expectations. “The Killer” chooses the crowd but instead of prioritizing the demonstration of violence, he exposes a new interest.
Layered by meticulous steps, each carried out in sight of a personal vengeance, the hitman toils with empathy but never gives in. Making peace with his immoral quest opens him to a world free of regret, doubt or relative care; an essential bonus for someone who lives their life in the pursuit of taking it away from others.
It’s rare to feel any form of sympathy for a Fincher protagonist, but respecting the discipline behind a character is a different story. And after all the ethical allowance he provides himself, this assassin gives into love, albeit for one person.
A dent in the armor that becomes exposed by invaders, he may appear to operate in a space of disassociation but in truth, is left naked by the human emotions he bears.
“The Killer” is everything audiences could expect from a Fincher film, but in challenging expectations, it takes its time to slip into the darker, human subconscious that lies at its core.
