" Stick to the plan. Anticipate, don't improvise. Trust no one. Yield no advantage. Forbid empathy." The Killer Michael Fassbender
You've seen cool killers in film before, but maybe not like this one. David Fincher is a fearless director tackling challenging films from Se7en and Gone Girl to Mank and many different subjects in between. The Killer is different from other films about assassins but the same in many respects. His Killer has the cool of Keanua Reeves' John Wick, the ingenuity of Sean Connery's James Bond, and not even close to the warmth of Denzel Washington's Equalizer.
Above all he's chill; the introductory quote gives the idea that he is as close to a killing machine as has ever appeared on screen. Reeves looks downright humane by contrast. Yet, like Wick, he is impelled to revenge as he tracks down his employer and operatives, who include Tilda Swinton's Expert at her androgynous, ambiguous best. We never learn his real name, but his aliases are legion, connecting him to us in macabre impersonation of our primal urge to revenge. He use names like Thomas Jefferson, Archie Bunker, and Felix Unger, all from TV and history.
To see him order some of his tools from the Amazon Smartphone App is to send an extra chill of recognition and connection. To hear him lament he can't recall his last "nice quiet drowning" is to paint a portrait of an amoral ghoul. However, the film is replete with dark jokes like The Expert's bear joke or the parmesan grater.
Avenging his girlfriend's beating, Killer tracks down each of her attackers with a precision that the voiceover analysis of his work manifests. Mostly it's about sticking to the plan, not being distracted, and not giving into sympathies. His chat track is late night show amusing but without back story or emotion.
He has broken a cardinal rule of his profession by revenging his girlfriend's misfortune. While he exclaims to be indifferent and cold to emotions, his voice over continues to assert the revenge necessity. In that way, writer Andrew Kevin Walker connects us to emotional weaknesses in us all. After all, his hat and his problems are not much different from Brad Pitt's in Bullet Train.
What we do see is a man who is regimented and cool enough to kill for a profession and love and defend a woman who has brought him close to death. In this way, he adds dimension to an MO almost solely owned by John Wick, without the body count. As Total Film's Jan Crowther comments, "And if you ever wondered what Fincher's Bond might have looked like, this could be it."
The Killer is a hypnotizing study of lethal precision with only a hint of humanity. If you wait for it on Netflix, you can savor the director's precise use of his own cinematic tools as many times as you want. And with intermittent snacks.
"I am who I am." Popeye, quoted by the Killer.
You've seen cool killers in film before, but maybe not like this one. David Fincher is a fearless director tackling challenging films from Se7en and Gone Girl to Mank and many different subjects in between. The Killer is different from other films about assassins but the same in many respects. His Killer has the cool of Keanua Reeves' John Wick, the ingenuity of Sean Connery's James Bond, and not even close to the warmth of Denzel Washington's Equalizer.
Above all he's chill; the introductory quote gives the idea that he is as close to a killing machine as has ever appeared on screen. Reeves looks downright humane by contrast. Yet, like Wick, he is impelled to revenge as he tracks down his employer and operatives, who include Tilda Swinton's Expert at her androgynous, ambiguous best. We never learn his real name, but his aliases are legion, connecting him to us in macabre impersonation of our primal urge to revenge. He use names like Thomas Jefferson, Archie Bunker, and Felix Unger, all from TV and history.
To see him order some of his tools from the Amazon Smartphone App is to send an extra chill of recognition and connection. To hear him lament he can't recall his last "nice quiet drowning" is to paint a portrait of an amoral ghoul. However, the film is replete with dark jokes like The Expert's bear joke or the parmesan grater.
Avenging his girlfriend's beating, Killer tracks down each of her attackers with a precision that the voiceover analysis of his work manifests. Mostly it's about sticking to the plan, not being distracted, and not giving into sympathies. His chat track is late night show amusing but without back story or emotion.
He has broken a cardinal rule of his profession by revenging his girlfriend's misfortune. While he exclaims to be indifferent and cold to emotions, his voice over continues to assert the revenge necessity. In that way, writer Andrew Kevin Walker connects us to emotional weaknesses in us all. After all, his hat and his problems are not much different from Brad Pitt's in Bullet Train.
What we do see is a man who is regimented and cool enough to kill for a profession and love and defend a woman who has brought him close to death. In this way, he adds dimension to an MO almost solely owned by John Wick, without the body count. As Total Film's Jan Crowther comments, "And if you ever wondered what Fincher's Bond might have looked like, this could be it."
The Killer is a hypnotizing study of lethal precision with only a hint of humanity. If you wait for it on Netflix, you can savor the director's precise use of his own cinematic tools as many times as you want. And with intermittent snacks.
"I am who I am." Popeye, quoted by the Killer.