Stick to the Plan

There is no doubt that David Fincher has his own particular style when it comes to movies. Whatever the subject matter might be, whether serial killers, aliens, tech billionaires, or other sociopaths, Fincher’s style remains. He films his characters in a specific way. Cold, almost sterile. Devoid of warmth even when they’re in a warm setting, like a jungle or in a spacebase foundry. It always feels like Fincher is analyzing his characters with his camera instead of simply directing them, and in many cases this works well. When we see the cold and analytical style applied to the characters of Se7en or Zodiac it helps us get into the feel of the investigation they’re pursuing.

This is part of why Fincher is so good at filming sociopaths: his cold style suits their cold demeanor. His best works focus on the monster in the middle of the story, even if, as in the case of Se7en and Zodiac, the monster is barely seen in the film at all. The psycho can be front and center, like in Gone Girl or The Social Network (I am not in the least bit sorry to the Zuck for saying that), or on the fringes, like with Mindhunter, and Fincher’s style still works to accent the mood.

There are rare misfires, though, and it feels like The Killer is one of those misfires. Based on the French series of comics written by Matz and illustrated by Luc Jacamon, The Killer is a film about a contract killer (thus the title) going through the motions of just another job. Except it turns out to be not just another job when things go off the rails, and a cold and analytical movie about a killer becomes a hot and passionate one about escape and retribution. Fincher is at his best when he can focus on his killer set on the job to do, but when it comes time to feel anything for the character, Fincher’s style fails to deliver. It leaves the movie feeling cold right when it actually needs to find some of that missing passion.

In the film, Michael Fassbender plays The Killer (no other name given). We see him in Paris, set up in an abandoned WeWork office, spending his days watching an empty penthouse apartment across the street, waiting for his target to arrive. He spends his days listening to music, doing yoga, and watching. Always watching. As he comments, boredom is the worst part of the job. When the target finally arrives, the Killer lines up his shot and gets ready to complete the contract… except that a woman in the apartment with the target gets in the way of the shot. She dies, he doesn’t, and the Killer suddenly watches the open kill window close without being able to fulfill the arrangement.

Following his plan, because he always has a plan, the Killer cleans up, packs up, and is out the door within seconds. He disposes of all of his gear in various, untraceable, different areas, and is on a plane within a couple of hours (under one of many false identities), returning home to his mansion in the Dominican Republic. The job went south, but he feels sure that eventually the client will contact again (through the Killer’s own handler) for a way to make amends on the deal. Except when the Killer actually gets back to his home he finds a bloody scene. Someone broke in and attacked the Killer’s lover, Magdala (Sophie Charlotte), trying to get information about where the Killer was. Finding her in the hospital, sliced up and badly beaten, he swears that she will never have to face that kind of danger again. And then he sets off to take out everyone that caused this whole affair.

While the film starts off pretending like it’s an analysis of a cold-blood killer, the core story is really about revenge. The opening act may set the scene for our character – how he thinks, how he acts, what he does when he’s bored and also when he’s suddenly in danger – but the film really picks up once he gets home and finds the carnage at his house. Then the film shifts and tries to be something else, while also still trying to be an analysis of the Killer in the process, and that’s really what lets the film down.

To be a proper analysis the film has to remain cold and disconnected, never feeling anything about the Killer in much the same way that he doesn’t feel anything about his targets. Except because he has someone he cares about, someone he fears losing, he’s not an unfeeling Killer. Not really. Yes, it’s the job he does, and he’s apparently (normally) quite good at it, but he’s not the dispassionate murderer that the film needs him to be. He’s someone else, warmer and more passionate. The story tells us one thing, Fincher’s filming style shows us something else, and the two stylistic threads of the film never properly intertwine.

It’s an issue of motive. For the Killer to want to go through and take out everyone that wronged Magdala (and him), he has to feel something. His crimes have to be forceful, violent, filled with rage. We have to feel what he’s feeling so that we understand him as a character. We’re already struggling with him since we know he’s a bad guy (who just so happens to be, we assume, killing worse guys, although he never makes that judgment), so the film really needs to make us feel something about him just so we care about what he does next.

Giving him a girlfriend to care about does help, and Fassbender does a good job of trying to emote all that he can under Fincher’s very exacting direction, but it never really comes across like he truly loves Magdala. I spent much of the film, even as he was going around killing all the people that attacked her, wondering if he was on this quest for revenge to protect her or to protect himself. The film, like the Killer at the center of it all, remains elusive about making those kinds of distinctions and it certainly hurts the story.

It almost would have been better if the Killer didn’t have someone, or at least didn’t care about them beyond using them as cover for their own false identity story. Then, at least, we’d understand the character at the center of it all. Cold and calculating, out there just for themselves and using others around them as part of their own story. Then they’d be like Amy Dunne in Gone Girl, a fantastic Fincher story that absolutely nails showing us a cold and dispassionate killer like we’d expect we have here in The Killer. Or, at least that’s how Fincher films him, but it doesn’t really work here.

We either need that, or we need Fincher to be less exacting, less cold with his filming style. We’d need him to warm up so that we can feel what the Killer is feeling. You can have a well trained killer that can get themselves out of jams and still care about someone in their life. Just look at The Bourne Identity, which shares a number of similarities in its character, story, and setting, but comes across as a high intensity thriller with a lot of passion. That passion is missing here, right when it’s needed most.

That’s not to say The Killer is all bad. It’s still very well made, and there are fantastic moments (such as when the Killer confronts another contract killer, played by Tilda Swinton) that keep the film lively enough. The acting in the film is solid, with Fassbender doing a lot of great work to play the killer with just a bit of soul peaking out. It’s not an easy job, even before you take Fincher’s directing style into account (which can be very specific and exacting, with dozens, if not hundreds, of takes). Fassbender handles it well.

But still, it’s hard to feel anything about this film, not like you can for many of Fincher’s greats. The character at the center of it all never comes into focus the way he should, even with Fassbender doing all he can to sell it. It feels like aspects of the character shift and change as needed by the story but they’re never really complete. They’re a facade on a facade, fake in different ways as needed. Maybe that works for a villain we can never really understand but it doesn’t hold up for a character that is supposed to be our protagonist (no matter how much evil he’s doing). Fincher never finds the main character the way that he should, and without that The Killer feels adrift.