'The Killer' Is Very Good But Not To To Die For
Relentlessly paced but methodical, David Fincher's newest film is a fine addition to his impressive filmography. If you're expecting a thriller like Se7en, you may be disappointed. What you will get is a well-paced character study where the protagonist doesn't change, yet that's the whole intention of the character. The film titles its characters like it's Cormac McCarthy's The Road does for its characters. The Kliller (Michael Fassbender) has no identity. He goes by multiple aliases' to never be caught. He's an assassin who's a blank spot on the social canvas. He has no personal cell phone or license plate. His employer is credited in the film as "The Lawyer." Everyone's titled by their assignation instead of their name. In the world of The Killer, nobody matters.
The Killer goes by a particular modus operandi. "Stick to your plan. Trust no one. Forbid empathy. Anticipate. Don't improvise. Never yield an advantage. Fight only the battle you're paid to fight. Ask yourself, what's in it for me?" This M.O. is repeated throughout the entire film. If The Killer loses his cool or does anything to deviate from his plan, he's a dead man.
The story of The Killer is similar to many movies about criminals. If you've seen Michael Mann's Thief, you can guess the entire plot of this movie. The film opens with a sleek opening credit with Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross' score blaring. It's like a Saul Bass opening credit mixed with Se7en. The editing is sleek, detailed, and quick. Each cutaway is to a gun getting made or gloves being put on. When we enter the film, we hear The Killer's M.O., but he makes a mistake, botching one of his assassinations. He snipes the wrong target. Therefore, his life is now in danger. How The Killer reacts to the danger is the same way he must approach every job.
The Killer must forgo empathy, as empathy is weakness. If you trust anyone and let them go, then you could live to regret it. Maybe not right away, but sooner or later, that trust could lead to your demise. After the failed assassination, The Killer must hunt down all his employers to ensure his safety. He never takes the mission to defend himself as personal. It’s strictly business. The Killer knows it's just standard protocol to take him down if he fails at his mission. Those are just the necessary stakes so nobody who employed The Killer is arrested or killed.
Michael Fassbender is terrific in the role of The Killer. He must always be stoic, never changing or deeply emoting. It's similar to what Ryan Gosling had to do for Blade Runner 2049, where K is a replicant who isn't supposed to be emotional, or he'll fail his baseline test to do his job, thus keeping his life. For The Killer, it's strikingly close to the same set of circumstances. Fassbender has a very stern face to match the cold-bloodedness of a professional murderer.
Never does Fassbender raise his voice or lose his composure. He's like a terminator in that regard. The most amount of emotion we get from Fassbender is him silently exclaiming an obscenity when making his fatal mistake. Most of Fassbender's acting is done through his reacting. We see how he views people when they're pleading for their lives only by reading his face. There's a particular scene when Fassbender is listening to Tilda Swinton (The Expert) disclose information about the hit on him. He doesn't react much but merely calmly listens, never yielding away from his poker face. In most films, the failure to emote would be viewed as a flaw in the acting. If done by a different actor, The Killer could look bored throughout the movie. But Fassbender is fascinating to watch as we fully buy into him being a murderer who does everything in his power from snapping.
Just as impressive as Fassbender is the film's aesthetics. The cinematography by Erik Messerschmidt is rightfully cold in temperature to capture The Killer's mindset. From the streets of Paris to Chicago, the movie has a cleanness in its pristine digital cinematography that captures the natural light of an environment beautifully. The exteriors of each city are gorgeously captured in a way that only digital can get. One advantage digital has over film is the light range and sharpness of the image. If you look at a Christopher Nolan film that's projected in IMAX, the image is stunning, but it does have a blurriness to it that digital doesn't have. The exterior shots of the streets look so crisp that I can almost feel the temperature of the environment without actually being there.
Of course, you can't talk about a David Fincher film without mentioning Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross' score, which in this case is surprisingly minimal. The score is almost absent as most of the music is diegetic songs playing from The Killer's iPod nano. When the score does play, its minimal electric beats match the image of the film perfectly, as it never loudly announces its presence. Like a Killer, it attempts to stay silent. Everything about the film is done in a minimalistic way to capture The Killer's mindset.
There are moments when the film feels repetitive. The Killer's M.O. playing throughout the picture hammers home why he mustn't emote to the point of "I get it already." Still, it's an effective dramatic tool to convey to the audience why The Killer mustn't deviate from his path. Without much personality to The Killer himself, the film doesn't have much of an identity. Considering the subject material, it's clear why they took such an emotionless route. The film is made to be slick and tight like a professional assassin would be. The editing in this flick is incredibly smooth. There are occasions when Fincher intentionally fades the image in and out to emphasize an important moment, but it's not necessary when the rest of the film is so seamlessly cut together. From its slick acting to its aesthetics, The Killer is a masterfully directed film that's highly entertaining, if not a bit lacking in emotion.
