The Killer (2023) Review
THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.
When you make one mistake, it takes a while to undo it before moving on. You don’t think so? Look at Netflix’s The Killer.
PLOT
Inspired by Alexis Nolent & Luc Jacamon’s comic book, the 2023 film follows Michael Fassbender as the titular assassin who goes through various aliases without his government name ever being revealed. While staking out a Parisan hotel room where he sets up a sniper rifle, he waits for his target by practicing yoga and listening to The Smiths. As he carefully aims at night and shoots, the target’s dominatrix gets in his way and he kills her instead on accident. With the intended target going unharmed, he flees and disposes of his equipment in time to evade police. As he flies to Miami to his home in the Dominican Republic, he suspects being followed and reschedules his second leg of flight. When officially reaching home, he would be surprised to find it broken into and his girlfriend Magdala broken attacked. When checked in at the ICU, her brother Marcus (Emiliano Pernía) reveals she was interrogated/tortured by two assassins and was able to injure one before escaping. With this information, the Killer would track down the same cab driver that picked them up, Leo (Gabriel Polanco), and he gives them a description of them both. One was a woman named the Expert and a tall man named the Brute who had a limp leg when he last saw him. Moving forward, the Killer shoots Leo and goes to New Orleans to confront his handler, attorney Eddie Hodges. He disguises himself as a maintenance person to sneak in and forces his secretary Dolores (Kerry O’Malley) to tie him down and destroy his electronics. He then starts shooting him with a nail gun to demand the names of those who invaded his home. The lawyer refuses to do so before succumbing to his wounds, but the secretary chooses to anyway in exchange for a non suspicious death that can ensure her children having a life insurance payout. Breaking his rule of empathy, he meets the request by breaking her neck and shoving her body down the stairs of her home after she gives him what he wants. He first finds the Brute in St Petersburg, Florida, recognizing the limp. He goes after him at night, only to be blindsided and results in a longer fight until he is able to fatally shoot him and set the house on fire via Molotov cocktails. The only thing he spares is the Brute’s pet pitbull. He then proceeds to Beacon, New York, where he tracks down the Expert at a restaurant. When he confronts her, she seemingly enjoys her last supper before accepting her fate. She then does slip on purpose near ice covered stairs outside, but since he detected her having a weapon concealed, he shoots her rather than help her up and give her a fighting chance. The killer then travels to Chicago to confront the client of his botched task, billionaire Henderson Claybourne. He breaks into his penthouse with another set of tools, but Clay is able to save his life by swearing he’s got nothing personal against him because he paid Hodges extra to scrub the trail after task went awry. Interestingly, the killer chooses to spare him but promises a slow death should he ever see him again. The film would end with the lead character returning home as Magdala is recovering from her injuries.
THOUGHTS
It had been nine years since the last time David Fincher adapted a thriller feature, which was the acclaimed Gone Girl, so some expectations felt a bit high on how this was gonna go. Needless to say, this one hit the ballpark of visceral-ness you expect from him. He brought back his dream being a enigmatic score by Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross, as well as a precise cinematography/editing combo by Erik Messerschmidt & Kirk Baxter that creates an ideal perspective of what it can be like in a dark side of the world centered on a dangerous yet precise figure. Even in times where it should feel quiet, the exhilaration kicks in from each chase & shootout. Through Fassbender’s performance and exquisite narration, I think the main reason this one has its own compelling experience to transpire because writer Andrew Kevin Walker is able to give this approach that detachment can be a myth to those who try to act such because when mistakes happen on their end, their way of thinking has to change in order to get back to their normalcy. Fassbender is so intriguing as the lead because of his methodical mantra that’s made him the best in his field. But once his girlfriend got out in danger because of his mistake, he knew he had to figure out to regain control and revenge was just the way for him. Along the way, everyone he faced are complete opposite in how he approaches life. Arguably, Charles Parnell seems to be the most transactional and detached as Eddie, in the way the killer believes he is. If he was, he would’ve not cared for his girlfriend so much and killing his boss proved the exact opposite of who he identifies. I mean the lawyer was so detached that he accepted his fate as it happened rather than show any fear. Then transition to the people that were after him originally, that’s just the world he’s comfortable with. Tilda Swinton showed the Expert to be as systematic while Sala Baker portrayed the Brute as most impulsive and while these traits worked for them for a long while, their success was proven to be temporary. Lastly, I even had a good laugh seeing Arliss Howard as the Client Clay because he’s nothing like everyone he chose to associate with, choosing to be naive towards the situation he chose to be involved in. He shares detachment like Eddie, but he’s quite non confrontational which ideally makes him feel out of place and I think that’s the only reason he’s spared as he needs to realize what world he is in. You don’t get a lot of attention of Sophia Charlotte as Magdala, but since she’s just as calm as his partner when seeing her in recovery before the credits rolled, she seems to be grounded and loyal to accept the life she chose and accept who she loves for whichever reason we might not understand. If she’s willing to stay with him after something so traumatic, that does come to show she trusted him in setting it all right. And if they can take their trust this far, then they got nothing to worry about going forward. In short, 2023’s The Killer is a captivating thriller for knowing how to create the atmosphere of something unreal. If you got Netflix and those are the kind of movies you prefer, check this out.
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