'The Killer' review: Methodical patience drives Michael Fassbender-bolstered hitman tale

David Fincher knows how to craft a movie that feels like HIS FILM alone.

“Of those who like to put their faith in mankind’s inherent goodness, I must ask… based on what, exactly?”

Early on in David Fincher’s The Killer, the titled character presents an intriguing question on humanity’s absolute “glass half full” society, right after downing ten grams of cheap protein at a Parisian neighborhood McDonald’s and taking a nap.

After all, a hitman’s world must be devoid of empathy, or at the very least a low enough amount that popping an eternal hole in a woman’s forehead rubs off the soul faster than a blood stain comes off a silk shirt. Michael Fassbender’s Killer’s geological footprint is ghostly and his perfectionist setup built to a tee, a man whom people in the movie refer to by the country where he owns a home.

But at the end of the day, they’re still people. As much as Fassbender’s house-painter tells us throughout the early going of the film and in the trailer that he doesn’t give a fuck, we know deep down that he gives a little of a fuck. Enough to swing the no mercy special skills on his employers after they punish him for missing a target.

What Fincher, along with Seven screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker and two co-writers, does is take this familiar setup-hitman goes on run after a miss-and turn it inside out. He slows it down, digging deep into the mind of a guy who has killed enough people to perfect a method of doing so in multiple countries across the world. The audience gets to see it all come crashing down, but the tempo and overall aesthetic doesn’t scream John Wick or even Mads Mikkelsen’s enjoyable Netflix romp, Polar.

That’s not a Fincher-lit cinema joint; not his speed or style. He’s all sound, environmental aesthetic, and sheer cold-hearted ferocity in The Killer--but he doesn’t have to speed up the action-seasoned plot. The real fabric of the story is Fassbender’s hitman and the carefully constructed existence he built.

Even the narration-haters won’t be able to whine too much about Fassbender’s rambling existential diamonds while waiting for a target to settle into the frame of his rifle scope. What other well-made thriller can inform you that Paris carries 1,500 McDonald’s restaurants, over 1,400 billion people are born each day, and that 1.5 of them die on average each second. Fincher and company weave these uber facts into the fiber of the plot with a darkly comedic undertone that balances out the harsher violence of the film.

When there is action in The Killer, it stings with a visceral brutality. As Fassbender’s gun goes on the run, he chases a paper trail of betrayers, one that stands larger than life in Sala Baker’s The Brute. In a fight scene that clocks in at less than four minutes yet feels like fourteen, Fassbender and Baker go toe-to-toe in a battle that smashes doors, flat-screen televisions, and plenty of bones. The lead’s slender competence blends well with Baker’s immovable force. When the blood flows and the bullet shells drop, Fincher reminds you that less can be more in the right setting.

The Killer’s setting is nostalgically hypnotic for this 90s cinema kid. It was like a trip back to a day and age that didn’t scream for sequels or CGI; a theater could present flashy yet well-written character studies that looked like action adventure, just like Fincher’s movie. When he makes something, it feels solely like his brain and nobody else’s. The kills carry the shock value of Zodiac and his 1995 stunner that positioned the serial killer as the heel.

Here, the bad guy is the lead and quite an entertaining one. The rare film that made me ask for more quiet introspection when the volume got too loud--not that a score composed by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross should ever be turned down.

The supporting cast is a small group portrayed by great actors. Tilda Swinton, Arliss Howard, and Charles “they’re orders, Maverick” Parnell all give solid performances that keep the proceedings moving smoothly. Baker’s scene should send another wave of “the Oscars needs a best stunt category” screams through the land of make-believe.

But this is Fassbender’s movie. He owns it in the first minute, when his Killer talks about handling the rigors of boredom that come with his job. Put this one up there with Steve Jobs and Shame, where he takes a screenplay and made-up character to the brink of actually thinking he exists. Fight Club’s narrating anti-hero Tyler Durden and this Killer could get along quite well.

His hitman bleeds, actually has a conscience that doesn’t get overplayed, and doesn’t require the standard movie info-dump midway through. He lets us know every detail that we must know from verbal transfer, allowing the rest of the blanks to be filled in by his ruggedly disciplined behavior.

I knew all the details when I saw him remove the bread from an Egg McMuffin, or how he takes an extra second to appreciate himself in the mirror while on the move. Fassbender is a force to reckon with, and he never even raises his voice.

Make some time for The Killer. They need to make more sophisticated action-seasoned self-contained pleasures more often. A real win for Netflix and fans of 90s thrillers.