Michael Fassbender stars as a master executioner (more “lethal life coach” than “John Wick-ian death merchant”) in David Fincher’s glossy hit-man thriller.
“If you’re unable to endure boredom,” the protagonist of “The Killer” tells us in voice-over, as the titular assassin waits for his target to show up in the Parisian apartment across the street from his sniper’s nest, “this is not for you.” By “this,” of course, he means his own lethal profession, which initially entails vastly more waiting than actual killing.
A lot of interrogating, killing, fighting and torturing ensue, along with traveling to such places as Florida and Chicago. It’s all very slick and entertaining, with small jokes sprinkled throughout. But what is the ultimate point here? In the way the film is framed — like a lesson to wannabe executioners from a master of his craft/control freak — Fincher almost seems to be encouraging identification with his coolly perfectionist yet amoral antihero.
Don’t improvise, the killer tells us. Stick to the plan. And Fincher very much does, in this gleaming genre exercise: not quite rote but still familiar. “The Killer” is eminently watchable, especially when Tilda Swinton shows up, late in the story and sadly all too briefly, given our hero’s proclivities and her character’s role in his unhappiness. She delivers one of the film’s strangest speeches: an old joke about a grizzly bear and a hunter.
The whole enterprise is superficially shiny: a big rock with its imperfections polished down to a brilliant luster by an angle grinder. If Fincher had left some rough edges, there might actually have been something to give the plot grit and traction. As it is, “The Killer” is less a diamond than a piece of good-looking but cheap quartz: all sparkling surface and not much value.At area theaters; available Nov. 10 on Netflix. Contains strong violence, coarse language and brief sexuality.
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