THE KILLER

Andrew Kevin Walker and David Fincher deliver a cynical view of a methodical professional hitman in a film that evokes and inverts reactions to stagnant genre tropes. 

The standout for me in this adaptation is Andrew Kevin Walker’s screenplay. The unreliable narration of a methodical loner brought many similarities to mind with David Fincher’s Fight Club (1999), as well as the similarities between those two films in their gratuitous inclusion of commercial purchases. Where for Jack (played by Edward Norton in Fight Club), consumer items became an obsession that fed on his very existence and high salary paychecks. For The Killer (Michael Fassbender), purchases act as a convenient and easy tool that enables him to carry out his assignments. At every cashier’s desk or passport control point, The Killer comes face-to-face with someone who gives him what he needs to continue with his tasks, mainly with a welcoming smile and sometimes a complimentary incentive. In short, as a customer he fits right in.

It’s the character’s physical demeanour and proficiency in violence that completes an image of someone with the world around his pinky finger. However, Andrew Kevin Walker’s script gives us a more intimate glimpse at this character with a persistent inner monologue (and the occasional POV shot, with The Smiths blaring in our ears). We are aligned with him, listening to his every repetitive thought; no matter if we want him to shut up or not. We listen, as we do, as he thinks “Nobody’s perfect”, and our reaction is that we never believe he sees himself as just “nobody”.

The more we listen to his thoughts, the more he reveals himself; his narcissism and his narrow understanding of the world. This runs parallel with him being cautious, competent, and cool throughout the visuals of the story. But our privileged position of listening to his every thought can see where this assured posturing stems from. 

Now this machine-like killer has a crack that we peek through. We know he’s just a man. A very strange man, but he is flesh and blood, with emotions and imperfections, even if he doesn’t wish to show them. He’s self-obsessed, a creature of habit and has role models he looks up to - even if one of them is John Wilkes Booth. With all that considered he is still an effective killer. Now the thing here is that he isn’t who he thinks he is. He. Does. Give. A. Fuck. And, we continue to watch as he chooses to never accept that. 

It’s the narration that allows us to be critical of him. We can tell ourselves that we’re not too dissimilar to him (minus some obvious discrepancies), and we can begin to think we have something over him, and perhaps all sociopathic cinema hitmen, just by reading the flaws in his inner thoughts. And we are welcome to laugh at those flaws; even his morning routine and his uncomfortable presence in a darkly lit room can squeeze out a giggle. In its unusual way, the narration and the lead character of The Killer can shatter the mythos of the methodical hitman, the perfect killer, into little more than just a joke. 

Watched on Netflix, on December 1st 2023. This piece was written on December 2nd 2023.