The Killer

There is something ever so gently unhinged in this lean, crisp action film that doubles as an arthouse character study.

This is just David Fincher making a bloody, fun, gritty movie about an angry assassin. The name of the movie is The Killer and our lead character very much does that.

It’s not exactly an ambitious plotline for someone like Fincher, but it’s certainly an engaging one, and the cryptic, constantly evasive protagonist is a puzzle that lingers after the credits roll.

The Killer is a gorgeously sterile, de-romanticized riff on the likes of Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le Samourai (which notably features a near-silent assassin) and countless other hit-man movies, peppered with sideswipes at capitalism.

In The Killer, David Fincher is hooked on his own obsession with technique, his mystique of filmmaking-as-virtuoso-procedure. It’s not that he’s anything less than great at it, but he may think there’s more shading, more revelation in how he has staged The Killer than there actually is.

Filled with expertly composed sequences undone by the protagonist’s relentless observations about the meaninglessness of existence, the movie feels like an attempt to highlight its own emptiness.

A sleek, tight, fastidiously executed nothing.

The assassin might miss the shot but Fincher's definitely still hitting the shot almost perfectly for The Killer, an interesting narrating decision for Fassbender character that i'm not so sure at first but it grown on me and the whole movie started to getting a Memento vibe, the slowness of the film i really enjoyed it, the dark moody color, the story, the killing are all clever, intense, and very intriguing, The Killer also have one of the most brutal fight i've seen since John Wick: Chapter 4, an underwhelming ending for some people and i did find it anti-climatic but also anti-mainstream and after reading the decision behind it in terms of characters motive i actually really appreciate it and also much prefer the ending of the film rather than the obvious, i really enjoyed The Killer overall, a very intriguing slow journey of a killer hunting with great directing and great performances, another one of Fincher's best.

Well, I finally broke my Hollywood-movie watching absence. I haven’t seen a new movie in almost a decade(since 2016 onward). Until now. And I saw this one more or less by accident on a streaming site that shall remain unnamed here. I thought it was just a short clip at first, but realized soon it was the whole movie. And the last film I saw was also about an assassin, of all the things... From an entertainment point of view, yeah this movie holds up, but barely. It has enough substance to keep you interested to see what will happen next. But more often I wasn’t too impressed and was dumb enough to continue watching up until the end. And it’s such a n00b title – “The Killer”. Like really? What, did they pay a 5 year old kid to come up with that one? I know it’s based on the comic book with that name, but seriously. The style definitely reminds you of a Fincher directorial. If I wasn’t aware of who the director was, my first bet would be him. It’s so transparent, going back to his movies from the 1990s and 2000s. The only shots that I couldn’t recognize was sunny tourists-like places when killer-guy was driving. Some of those scenes look amateurish tbh. Because Fincher has loads of experience filming night and dark shots and maybe some cloudy stuff, but not so much out in the Sun. I think it really broke the consistency of the movie. Cinematographer could have been more critical(or self-critical). The plot itself is just so methodical, and lacks substance when you thought it had some. Main character is completely soulless. I mean the motivation for the killings were revenge and stop people from coming after him and his wife, I guess. But throughout his travels, he is just a calculated cold-hearted terminator with an emotionless face. I understand why, but who wants to watch that for an hour and a half? And having us as the audience being forced into this anti-hero rooting ...well, shall I say, I was not impressed by all his super-duper abilities as an excuse for his horrible behavior. All im thinking is “you're just another murderer”. Oh so he is killing the “bad guys”, so that makes it ok? Very convincing. Not. Tildas character was probably the least impressive throughout the whole damn movie, the way she was speaking in this figurative language, I think I only was able to catch one or two allegories she used of her 5 minutes on screen. But I can blame the writing on that. And what the heck was the drinking game about there? “Oh, I am about to die so just let me get drunk”. And the plotholes, oh my gooodinessss…. Like as if there aren’t enough security cameras, probable DNA and witnesses around for the police to investigate and catch the guy within a week. Yeah, I am more than sure that this was my last Hollywatch in a looong time going forward, or hopefully forever. I rather stick to reading books, as I have been instead of this, and I'm not much of a reader tbh, which says alot about movies these days.

An ok film although a big disappointment compared with the graphic novel. They should have stuck with the original narrative, as the film loses meaning and relevance. The novel is far more cutting and the character is far more relatable. That said, I'd probably watch it again.

This is Fincher's worst movie in decades. The dialogue and storyline is extremely unrealistic. The acting outside of Fassbender is so bad I literally cringed many times throughout the movie. Astoundingly, the cinematography is boring, predictable, ugly, uninspiring, and VERY digital and fake-looking. I never imagined I would ever say such things about a David Fincher flick. The opening scene is interesting but quickly becomes cringe when I heard the protagonists narration which sounds like every stereotypical 'try-hard' guy from 1999 who thinks he is cool by saying misanthropic and nihilist one-liners. The ending is random and very dissatisfying. Ultimately, I was left wondering why Fincher even made this movie. Fincher has become obsessed with his own farts and is now tone-deaf to his own cliches and weaknesses as a filmmaker. Making a symmetrical shot no longer constitutes a good filmmaker. He's become a bloated parody of himself with no substance, and ironically, no style.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]