The Killer

Director: David Fincher
Starring: Michael Fassbender, Tilda Swinton, Charles Parnell, Arliss Howard, Kerry O' Malley, Sophie Charlotte, Emiliano Pernía, Gabriel Polanco, Sala Baker, Endre Hules, Monique Ganderton
Running Time: 118 min.
Rating: R

★★★★ (out of ★★★★)  

The title character in David Fincher's The Killer prides himself on not being sloppy, or at least that's what he'd have us believe, as this unnamed assassin painstakingly walks through the steps of his job with enough precision and synchronicity to make Dexter look like a clueless hack. Just take his word for it, with a hypnotic voice over narration that not only runs down his static routine, but the skills and life philosophy needed for it. "Stick to the plan." "Don't improvise, anticipate." "Trust no one." "Forbid empathy." 

While those mantras are repeated throughout as we hang on every word, many his actions will eventually contradict them. He has the pre-kill ritual down to a science, eating, practicing yoga, and listening to The Smiths while waiting for his heartbeat to drop under 65 beats per minute before pulling the trigger. There's no room for trepidation or errors, until he actually misses and the fallout causes him to make some unexpected adjustments. Out for the revenge he can't admit to craving while carrying a guilt he's incapable of expressing, it's suddenly personal now.  

The killer (Michael Fassbender) hauls up in any empty office building across the street from a Parisian hotel, preparing to take out his latest target with a sniper rifle. But despite his obsessive preparation, the job goes horribly wrong, causing him to fall out of favor with his handler Hodges (Charles Parnell). Fleeing the country, he arrives back at one of his secret homes in the Dominican Republic to find girlfriend Magdala (Sophie Charlotte) viciously attacked by assassins sent by Hodges to satisfy the client. 

With vengeance in mind, the killer sets his sights on those responsible for ordering and carrying out the attack, targeting Hodges himself, the thuggish "Brute" (Sala Baker) living in Florida, the New York-based "Expert" assassin (Tilda Swinton) and billionaire client Claybourne (Arliss Howard). The question now becomes whether he can remain as calm and coldly proficient in his technique when the stakes are this high.  

Following a quick but transfixing opening title sequence and that meticulous setup, the killer missing his target hits particularly hard given all the precautions taken in avoiding this exact scenario. Wearing his bucket hat and Hawaiian shirt, he informs us his disguise is that of an easily avoidable German tourist, acknowledging the impossibility of going unnoticed in this day and age, aiming instead to be unmemorable. And he is, with everyone too busy, distracted or self absorbed to notice there's a murderer in their midst, providing valuable cover from his increasing carelessness.

Because we're so fully immersed in the killer's procedure, it's only more jarring when the wheels fly off, causing him to step outside a very familiar comfort zone. The assault on his partner is turning point since he could have just disappeared under one of his many fake names (a great running gag), sheltering himself and her from any further fallout, never to be seen or heard from again. Instead, he opts for payback, evolving from someone who despises improvisation into the rashest of improvisers. Either way, it's apparent he's much better at this in his head than reality.

Anything that can go wrong almost does, and multiple times, especially during a spectacular mid-film fight where the target's fate takes a backseat to his probability of survival. It may have been a lie at the beginning, but now the killer truly doesn't care, his recklessness most evident when confronting Tilda Swinton's previously untouchable assassin. Their extended one-sided conversation is the closest he gets to any kind of emotional connection, as it nearly breaks him discovering just how similar they actually are. 

The only quality differentiating him from Swinton's character is her ability to enjoy what appears to be a normal life in plain sight, free from the idiosyncrasies he leans on to do the job. She may have been worse at it this time, but it's not lost on him that their roles could have easily been reversed. And she won't let him forget that, regardless of her fate. None of his targets should really stand a chance since they're loose ends, but the unthinkable notion someone could be spared creeps through the further off course he veers, discovering buried pieces of himself along the way. 

Fassbender drolly delivers the unreliable but endlessly quotable voiceover, while also allowing each little movement, twitch and expression to do all the talking when he's not. An ideal fit for such oddly specific material, he quietly plays this without so much as a shred of humanity, squashing any chances the character will be experiencing any kind of epiphany or redemption.

Clinical to a fault, Fincher's chief interest lies in the process itself, with help from cinematographer Erik Messerschmidt's impressive location shooting, a propulsive, anxiety inducing score from Trent Rezor and Atticus Ross and a Smiths' soundtrack that humorously clashes with what unfolds. There isn't an ounce of excess fat here, with every scene and episodic stretch visually advancing Se7en writer Andrew Kevin Walker's script. Fincher's best in years, it also shares some of the same thematic elements of technical obsession contained in Zodiac and his brilliant but prematurely cancelled Mindhunter Netflix series.

The Killer is about a perfectionist suddenly left twisting in the wind, more desperate than ever to maintain his illusion of control. Skirting the line between genre exercise and art film, every move he makes feels compulsively purposeful, causing many to cite it as the definitive commentary on Fincher's own work. But it's also thoroughly rewatchable, finding the master again in top form, filling each frame with an abundance of details viewers experience entirely through the eyes and mind of an assassin who might be too fastidious for his own good.