The Killer

During the first minutes of the film, you’d feel like you’re listening to someone blabbering about something unimportant. Talking to no one but himself, in an abandoned office space, meticulously planning something. And you’re right, that is what’s happening here. Right from the bat, we are introduced to The Killer, and we hear what goes on his mind, and probably how he thinks on a daily basis. Directed by David Fincher, known for his psychological thriller genre of films such as Gone Girl, Se7en and Zodiac. This one isn’t any different.

Movie goers who craves bullet-hell action scenes won’t like this as much. It starts out with his thoughts, and that went on for several minutes. I actually got bored for a while, waiting for something exciting to happen. The build up to the first event that started the domino was well worth it.

Dialogue-driven story

I’m not much of a dialogue-driven kind of a guy, but this one was different. His thoughts, his repetitive thoughts and rules in life and work pretty much sums up his whole character. Even with all the dialogues, the cinematography was masterful. The camera work, the angle, the lighting kept the audience entertained, visually, whilst listening to his ramblings.

Characters

Fassbender kept his composure throughout the whole film, reminded me of his demeanor in Alien: Covenant. Blank. Steady. Unwavering. His character sticks to a strict regime during his work. All details are accounted for, even a random passerby. He trained for around ten weeks for this role. During this time, he built up his strength, flexibility, and endurance with his trainer David Kingsbury. All of the above mentioned to show a somewhat comedic portrayal of a failed assassin-psychopath.

Given Fassbender’s titular role as The Killer, let us not forget about the others that were involved. The Client, The Lawyer, The Floridian, and The Expert., all of whom have performed exponentially well. But among them, Tilda Swinton (The Expert) had the most impactful dialogue, because it is the very gist of the film’s premise:
“I’m flattered, but no. You’re here because you couldn’t help yourself. You expected to sit across from me and feel nothing but reassured. Like that recent day when you shouldered your weapon and somehow… missed.”
The fight with Floridian Man was also one of the best I’ve seen in recent years.

Its genius comedy if you look at it closely (spoiler)

Everyone is entitled to their opinion. Having said that, I think this is a funny portrayal of a failed assassin-psychopath. If you’ve watched it, you’ll notice at the first minutes, he rambles on about statistics in the world. He keeps reciting his mantra whenever a decision was about to be made:

“Stick to your plan”
“Anticipate, don’t improvise”
“Trust no one”
“Never yield an advantage”
“Fight only the battle you’re paid to fight”
“Forbid empathy”
“Empathy is weakness”
“Weakness is vulnerability”

Most of the time he contradicts himself, and even unsure if he can keep up with his mantra. With Dolores, the secretary, he kills her while granting her wish, to die in an accident, so that her children could get the insurance.

He’s obsessed with being the perfect killer. He meticulously prepares and claims to know all the stats of the world. Yet, he fumbles and fails comedically. After all his ramblings in the beginning to build up his image of a perfect assassin, he missed his target.
Then we go to The Lawyer. He punches a nail to his chest, and dictates some statistics on how long he has left before he dies. Dead wrong again, and the Lawyer dies before getting the answer he needs. So he improvises and kills the secretary, but he was able to get the information, so there’s that.

The poster where Fassbender, the killer, is wearing sort of a bucket hat reminds me of Brad Pitt’s character in Bullet Train (2022), we wore the same thing.

Conclusion

The Killer is an in your face dark humor if you really look into it. Most of his mistakes were an “oh shit, oops.” This clearly indicates that all his ramblings and calculations were a guess. It’s a good film to watch about a failed psychopath killer, just don’t take it too seriously as the film suggests.