IT was Albert Einstein that said, “Out of clutter, find simplicity.”
This is the principle by which Michael Fassbender’s character, a detached and disciplined international assassin, spends his cheerless days in David Fincher’s new film The Killer.
Based on the French graphic novel by writer Alexis ‘Matz’ Nolent and artist Luc Jacamon, it sees Fassbender play a nameless hitman who is robotic in his cold and calculated approach to work and the world around him.
A killer with a penchant for bucket hats and the sounds of The Smiths, the biggest complaint he has about his unusual career choice is the waiting and the boredom that comes with it. Yoga, the forlorn croon of Mancunian miserablist Morrissey, and pondering what John Wilkes Booth (the stage actor who assassinated Abraham Lincoln) would do in his stead, help him while away the hours.
Early on in the film, he claims, in a deadpan and glib manner that – despite the jet-setting millionaire lifestyle – he is not exceptional. No, instead, crediting Popeye for the belief, muses, “I am what I am”.
Solitary, indifferent, businesslike, and unencumbered by scruples or regrets, he waits in the shadows, watching for his next target. Yet, the longer he waits, the more he thinks he’s losing his mind, if not his cool.
With the Parisienne skyline as a backdrop, and The Smiths’ “Well I Wonder’ to score the opening scene, we are held captivated as the trigger is finally squeezed and the mark is missed.
We are off, the pace picks up ever so slightly, as our hitman, now himself a target, crosses the globe with his employers and those who ordered his hit in his sights.
Fincher’s latest film, now showing on Netflix, is hugely entertaining and exquisitely debased. The pacing will turn many off in the first 10 minutes, but if it turns out to be for you, this study of the soul’s dark heart is told with wit and heartfelt deliberation.
(4/5)
