Venice 2023: David Fincher's precision assassin thriller 'The Killer'

This is the story of an assassin. This is the story of what happens when an assassin makes a mistake in his mission. It's an assassin story we've seen 100 times already. It's a movie about an assassin who is very good at what he does, who sticks to his plan and doesn't make mistakes. Until he does. And that's about what happens next. We all know this story. Sometimes I wonder if all assassin or hitman movies are the same. They all repeat the same tropes, the same story beats, rarely adding anything new or changing things up. Not much can really be said about an assassin story anyway (note: that's debatable, but that's for another day). David Fincher's latest feature, The Killer, is once again the same assassin story we've seen in so many other films, including Melville's iconic classic, The Samurai. It even reminded me of Kill Bill: Vol. 2, with Beatrix finally reaching the top, only to meet Bill himself, confront him, and save herself. Even though it's a story we've seen many times before, it's still a very good assassin movie.

Fincher's

The Killer is his 12th film. The screenplay is written by Andrew Kevin Walker (who also wrote Fincher's Se7en) and is based on Matz and artist Luc Jacamon's graphic novel "The Killer". Its tone and style is closer to Fight Club and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and it's more engaging and compelling to watch than Mank, released a few years ago (also on Netflix). The film will make its world premiere at the 2023 Venice Film Festival in the main competition, a great place for an astute assassin flick like this, as Venice has screened plenty of assassin films over the years. After a fateful near miss, a hitman fights against his employers, but also against himself, in an international manhunt that he believes is not personal. Michael Fassbender stars as unnamed "The Killer," who narrates most of the film from a meta perspective, explaining himself and his expertise as we watch the story unfold. At first, his mission goes awry with a very typical "oops, someone got in the way of the target at the last second" error which is a blatant assassin trope. The rest of the film shows him trying to clean up the typical "response" from everyone involved when a mission doesn't go as planned.

What makes The Killer such a great movie is that it is shot with such precision and Fassbender is so precise in his polished performance. It's literally a movie about precision. With Fincher at the helm, it's spellbinding and thrilling to watch anyway, even if you know where it's going, even if you've heard all he has to say about hitmen and morality, even if it doesn't do anything new or different or clever. Fincher's goal seems to be to make a clean, no-frills, highly focused film - without an ounce of the complexity or grandeur of many of his past films. And that's absolutely fine. It's always fun to watch. However, I wish there was a little more to it… Something more he was saying, or commenting on, than the same old, endlessly repeated philosophical proclamations about assassins. Yes, we know: the morality of professional murder is questionable on the whole; he just does his job to get paid and take care of his loved ones; it's not personal and he has no interest in the murders; he doesn't care about politics or purpose, he just wants to do his job nice and clean. Fair enough. Even Fincher regulars Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross score the same as before.

The opening is the best part of the movie, the rest just follows the moves of an assassin thriller. Fassbender's opening monologue is exceptional, the kind of monologue that students will print out as graphic text and hang on their walls. I can't wait to see it again, even if I'm sure I won't discover anything new. I just want to immerse myself in the cinematography of cinematographer Erik Messerschmidt and admire the perfectly shot and perfectly lit scenes. Damn, it's so nice to see that. Fincher's attention to detail with every pixel makes it utterly thrilling. There's an overwhelming amount of engrossing tension as The Killer travels the world (and back again) racking up victories and staying one step ahead of everyone every step of the way. Even if his murder isn't your concern, watching him meticulously control and manage evidence and discover how o...