The Killer is a new movie from David Fincher, available for streaming on Netflix. Movies released straight to streaming services have been a mixed bag, with some very good offerings that stand up to anything released in theaters, to pretty crappy formulaic consumable crap that’s really only entertaining if you completely turn off your brain. Fortunately, The Killer fits neatly into the former category rather than the latter.
The Killer is something of a procedural assassin movie, starring Michael Fassbender as the titular killer, whose real name the audience never knows. As the movie begins, we get to know this professional assassin while he’s on assignment, learning what he thinks it takes to do his job successfully and evade capture, and discovering that perhaps it’s not the glamorous and exciting occupation that it’s sometimes made out to be in fiction. Our killer is supremely patient and prepared for every contingency, with a steadfast adherence to a set of rules that has kept him safe…right up until something goes wrong with his mission, and he’s forced to flee the scene carrying the stink of his first failure. That failure follows all the way back to his “hideout” and touches directly on the parts of his life that he thought were untouchable. For the rest of the film, we follow our killer as he hunts down the people responsible for intruding on his life, taking increasing risk as he pushes the limits of what his rules allow, but ensuring that this sort of transgression is never permitted to happen again.
The plot of The Killer is not overly complex. At its bones, it’s very similar to dozens of similar assassin/hit man revenge movies we’ve seen before. However, the delivery is very different from something like John Wick, for example. This is more of a suspense thriller than an action flick, and while there is some violence and action, it’s really the process of working through all the steps associated with each hunt that helps grow the tension as the killer moves through his list of victims. Fassbender’s anti-hero narrates a good portion of the movie, pulling the audience onto the side of what can only really be described as an amoral murderer. Fassbender is very good in the title role, and there are appearances from other actors you may recognize including Tilda Swinton, Arliss Howard, and Charles Parnell. All these other characters are mostly secondary, even with a decent supporting cast. The visual style and cinematography, score and music (almost all Morrisey/Smiths), and pacing of the movie are top notch, and threw this film into stark contrast with some others I’ve watched lately. While a lot of recent movies seem patched together or have significant story holes, The Killer just feels more like a complete movie. Nothing extra, no marketing gimmicks, no obvious fan service, no social messaging (although a couple of modern corporations make unflattering appearances,…hello wework); just a simple story, told fairly well.
The Killer is a nice addition to the Netflix stable, and a welcome deviation from some of the consumable paint-by-numbers crap that has been released both online and in theaters recently. It’s fairly violent, with a little foul language, and is certainly not a kid’s movie. If nothing else, they’re likely to be bored by the deliberate pacing as opposed to the frantic action of so many other offerings in the thriller genre. Overall, if you’re a Fincher fan or if you’re looking for something besides Marvel, Taylor Swift, or the latest Fast and Furious sequel, The Killer might be a good option for you.