The Killer (2023)
Directed by David Fincher
Whether it’s the “cool girl” sequence of Gone Girl or Lisbeth’s globe-trotting journey to clear Mikael’s name in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, editor Kirk Baxter and director David Fincher have perfected the art of the montage. These sequences are not only memorable, but they convey a direct rebuttal to Andre Bazin’s theory on montage as a battle of mutually exclusive concepts between “faith in the image” and “faith in reality;” the two, to Baxter and Fincher, can operate harmoniously. With The Killer, Baxter and Fincher find material whereby montage becomes the prevailing mode to examine their character and his comically cold-blooded worldview. It’s the filmmaker’s most brutally efficient film to date, and a compelling, at times experimental, exercise in process and procedure.
The opening sequence of the film finds our unnamed hitman (Michael Fassbender) providing extensive voiceover as he stalks his target from the confines of an abandoned WeWork facility in Paris. His pragmatic code of ethics is a series of pithy masculine cliches on craft and denial of emotion. “Stick to the plan, forbid empathy”, he says as he proceeds with his stretching routine in solitude. He attempts to suffocate these lingering thoughts by playing The Smiths in his earbuds, a running gag that proves effective in demonstrating the Tyler Durden-esque lineage to which this character belongs to. This is enhanced by the film’s impressive aural qualities, where Morrissey’s distinct baritone voice moves in and out of the diegetic sound space. It’s the kind of nuanced formal technique that seems just as impossible as the nightclub dialogue in The Social Network.
Having the opportunity to off his mark, our hitman… misses. This sends him spiraling out of Paris, returning home to his hideout in the Dominican Republic. Again, these sequences are cut with such brutal efficiency that much like Fassbender, you’re reluctant to blink so as not to miss all the detail that Fincher stuffs into every frame. Returning to his hideout, we discover that he has a partner that’s been wounded as a result of his failed Parisian escapade. This forces the killer to hunt down his pursuers, relying on his seemingly endless supply of cash and alternate identities to move from New Orleans, New York, and Chicago.
Given that Fassbender isn’t much of an orator here, we observe much of the film as a series of actions and processes. So much of it reminded me of Jake Gyllenhaal in Zodiac, where his character riffles through evidence boxes, as we observe him hastily gathering information from case files without the help of pen or paper, before bolting out of the police station and quickly scribbling down notes onto a diner napkin. The Killer is that sequence throughout its runtime; a series of captivating expositional flourishes communicated mostly through images and not dialogue. Having recently watched Cord Jefferson’s American Fiction, it was practically whiplash experiencing a film that was more content with communicating its ideas through images and not overabundant and expositional dialogue. It’s a matter of taste but my preferences reside in Fincher’s approach.
The broader implications that can be derived from the film’s limited dialogue suggests the kind of toxic ennui that’s often associated with hypermasculine films like American Psycho or Fincher’s own Fight Club. The stark, matter-of-fact monotone of Fassbender’s delivery however, evokes a comic tone that often critiques itself. Fincher, Baxter, and Fassbender are acutely aware of the tradition of these types of films; whether it’s Alain Delon in Le Samourai or Ryan Gosling in Drive, these stoic figures brandish their inhumanity as virtues and not pathology. It’s an extension of Amy Dunne in Gone Girl, where a logical pathology forms to internally validate violence and ultimately survival. But the emphasis on procedure, with Fincher highlighting movement, makes The Killer an ideal companion to a far less-seen film, Anton Corbijn’s excellent The American. Both films observe men relying on their brutal pasts to carve out a future that’s simply impossible to obtain. While Corbijn’s film, with its somber and still visual arrangements, may seem diametrically opposed to the humor and propulsiveness of The Killer, the two complement each other. One’s about a killer that can’t escape their past, the other has let it inform his violence and simply does not give a fuck. Both have endured and provided enough pain for several lifetimes, but in Fassbender’s case, to quote Morrisey, the pain is enough to make a small shy Buddhist reflect and plan a mass murder.