IanTheCool
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Post by IanTheCool on Oct 28, 2023 11:18:21 GMT -5
I must admit that when I heard that Fincher's return to movie theaters was going to be a movie about a hitman, I was struck with pangs of disappointment. Really, a hitman? One of the most tired tropes in modern movies? The only thing that would be worse is if Michael Fassbender started dating someone who thought he was normal but learned he was an assassin and got caught up in his double life.
But this is Fincher after all, so we should probably give him the benefit of the doubt. And... he deserves that benefit. Because of course Fincher makes this movie his own. There is a procedural grind to this assassin's actions that feels like only Finchie (are we calling him Finchie now?) could do. Fassbender also puts his stamp on this character, making us believe not only that he is a cold-blooded killer, but also a real person constantly justifying and living with what he does.
This movie is slick and thoughtful. The shots are well composed, the sound mixing is strong and impactful, and the use of source music is done in a way I haven't seen before. (I'm not entirely sure I liked it, but I haven't seen it before). It jumps from locale to locale like a spy film, and was reminiscent of some of the less bombastic Bond movies.
The only real complaint I have is that I felt the ending was a little on the weak side. I was hoping for a stronger climax, especially when the previous "chapter" had a similar build-up with more payoff. But regardless, The Killer is a great return to form for Fincher and one of the best movies I've seen so far this year.
9/10
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Dracula
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Post by Dracula on Oct 28, 2023 11:56:12 GMT -5
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PhantomKnight
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Post by PhantomKnight on Oct 28, 2023 12:18:31 GMT -5
Not currently playing anywhere near me. Looks like I'll have to wait two weeks for Netflix. Damnit.
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PG Cooper
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Post by PG Cooper on Oct 28, 2023 12:41:05 GMT -5
Seeing this tonight.
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Neverending
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The Killer
Oct 28, 2023 16:24:22 GMT -5
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Post by Neverending on Oct 28, 2023 16:24:22 GMT -5
Wow. You guys wasted no time on this one. I think I’m gonna wait a few days. This is playing in small auditoriums cause of Freddy and the Taylor Swift/Floor Moon 3-hour shitfest. Grabbing good seats is a mission. I remember looking at the Thursday night seat selections and heard this:
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donny
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The Killer
Oct 29, 2023 17:52:29 GMT -5
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Post by donny on Oct 29, 2023 17:52:29 GMT -5
Didn’t know this was already released in my area until I saw this review thread. Good looking out. Will catch this week.
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PG Cooper
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The Killer
Oct 29, 2023 18:14:11 GMT -5
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Post by PG Cooper on Oct 29, 2023 18:14:11 GMT -5
Cool movie.
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Dracula
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Post by Dracula on Oct 29, 2023 18:30:09 GMT -5
Didn’t know this was already released in my area until I saw this review thread. Good looking out. Will catch this week. Same sort of thing happened to me. I was cold reading movie listings and was like "wait, that's coming out this week?" Really weird times we're living in when a David Fincher movie gets this quiet of a hype cycle. Fucking Netflix! |
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frankyt
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The Killer
Oct 29, 2023 20:36:37 GMT -5
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Post by frankyt on Oct 29, 2023 20:36:37 GMT -5
Not in my area at all. Shits so lame.
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Dracula
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Post by Dracula on Oct 31, 2023 19:58:27 GMT -5
The Killer(10/27/2023) Despite him being a major filmmaker who’s been working consistently it’s been almost a decade since we’ve been able to see a David Fincher film in theaters when it opened. That’s because in the nine years since his 2014 film Gone Girl the man has almost exclusively worked at everyone’s favorite “disrupter” Netflix, whether he was producing “House of Cards” or producing and directing episodes of “Mindhunter” or making his 2020 film Mank. I guess there probably were technically some theaters playing that latter film but it came out in the middle of the pandemic when it would have been rather irresponsible to go out to watch it. Make not mistake I’m grateful for a lot of this. “Mindhunter” was a great show that I really wish we would have gotten more of and it was great to get a real prestige film like Mank streamed directly into our homes when we were most starved for new movies, but it still felt like something was missing through all of this and even though I was able to see his new film The Killer in a theater despite it also being a product of Netflix it still feels like something’s missing as there’s been a surprising lack of excitement by all involved. In some ways I wonder if what we really think is missing from these Netflix releases isn’t really access to big screens so much as we just miss that anticipation that a pre-release marketing push and hype cycle provides to traditional theatrical releases. Either way, a Fincher movie is a Fincher movie, and I certainly wasn’t going to miss this one which promises to be his return to the world of high gloss thrillers.
The film begins with an assassin (Michel Fassbender), who I don’t believe is ever given a name, in a building in Paris plotting to kill a target in a nearby hotel penthouse with a sniper rifle. However, when the time comes to take the shot, something goes wrong. The hooker who was entertaining the target in the room just happened to unexpectedly step in the line of fire when the assassin took his shot and the target escaped. Knowing that there was nothing more he could do, the assassin sticks to the plan and gets out of town but upon returning to his hideout in the Dominican Republic he learns that two other assassins had been sent there by his dispatcher in retaliation for his failure and had attacked an injured the woman he was living there with. As a result the assassin decides that his main course of action is to hunt down his dispatcher, the two agents who attacked his place, and the man who took out the initial contract in order to cover his tracks and prevent future attacks.
Though he takes some left turns here or there it is likely that when David Fincher’s obituary is written it will primarily view him as the maker of thrillers; a sort of modern day Hitchcock who found that genre to be his niche to which he applies his considerable skill, much to the chagrin of Academy types who would rather he put his skills towards “important” topics. Mank was one of his exceptions to that in which he made this rather personal film written by his father about film history and the way it’s intertwined with early 20th Century politics and sure enough that got him a lot of Oscar nominations for his trouble. But with The Killer he seems to be saying “fuck all that, I’m going to make a contract killer procedural, it’s going to look really cool, and hopefully it won’t seem the slightest bit ‘important’ to any awards voters.” Indeed, from a storytelling perspective this movie is almost defiantly basic at its heart. It follows just about every trope and tenant of the “hitman movie” formula to the point where this pretty much has to be a deliberate decision. It’s like a band or artist deciding to cover a “standard” as a canvas to show off their skills rather than writing a new song that people will need to wrap their heads around before looking at the execution. That’s kind of a high stakes choice that not a lot of directors can necessarily get away with, as the tagline on the posters reads: “execution is everything.” Fincher’s friend Steven Soderbergh did something kind of similar with his 2011 film Haywire, which also featured Michael Fassbender, and I almost wonder if this was meant to be a sort of response to that movie in a way.
There is one “assassin movie” trope that this does not indulge in, however, and that’s that this does not try to suggest that the hit that went wrong was supposed to be “one last job” or that Fassbender’s character is in any way a conflicted or redeemable character. Rather he announces upfront in his voice-over narration that he “doesn’t give a fuck,” but at the same time this isn’t a movie that seems terribly interested in drawing attention to the fact that its protagonist is a sociopathic murderer or to try to punish him for his sins. Morality is very much not the point of this and in a lot of ways I wouldn’t even say character is the point outside of analyzing the main character’s persistence and meticulous mindset. Rather the movie is meticulously procedural; it’s about finding out what he’s planning to do at any given point and seeing how he’s going to execute on it. Fincher finds all sort of interesting details to highlight in each one of the assassin’s crimes and he’s also interested in making things ultra-modern and contemporary, incorporating things like abandoned WeWork spaces, smart watches, and Amazon dropboxes into his routines but doesn’t incorporate these things in ways that feel like obnoxious attempts to be cool or like product placement.
More than anything though this feels like an exercise in “vibes.” Long before the movie even went into production people anticipated it would be Fincher’s homage to Jean-Pierre Melville’s 1967 neo-noir Le Samouraï, which is something of an ur-text for a whole range of highly formalist crime movies with inarticulate protagonists, and sure enough Fincher early in the film has Fassbender wearing tight black gloves which actively flaunt this influence. But unlike other “vibes” movies like Drive or The American I don’t think mainstream audiences are going to accuse this movie of being “boring” or “slow” though they may be a bit weirded out by its minimal storytelling. The film is certainly an action movie which opens with an elaborate assassination scene and resulting escape and has this big elaborate fight scene midway through that will impress people who are just looking for that. As for those looking for more, well, it’s probably going to have more to offer to dedicated Fincher stans (like myself) who are going to be happy to just watch a style exercise from him than it will for people expecting something as weighty as a Zodiac or a The Social Network, but maybe I’m underselling it a little even while praising it. I suspect there will be some interesting readings looking for metaphor and allegory in all of this and those takes may prove to be fun, but for now I’m just happy we got a badass slice of cinema from one of the formal masters of our time. **** out of Five
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frankyt
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The Killer
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Post by frankyt on Nov 11, 2023 12:02:47 GMT -5
I mean that one fight was fucking awesome. But other than that I was kinda meh on this. Perhaps I was distracted though - I'll prob rewatch this sooner than later. Did get the feel of the comics very well though I'll give em that.
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PhantomKnight
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Post by PhantomKnight on Nov 12, 2023 0:10:48 GMT -5
One of my favorites of the year so far. It pretty much had a hypnotic hold over me.
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PhantomKnight
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Post by PhantomKnight on Nov 22, 2023 22:15:24 GMT -5
Pretty much the entire First Act of David Fincher's The Killer depicts its titular character doing everything he can to pass the time while waiting for his target to arrive so that he can kill them...and I found myself immediately hooked. And that First Act is pretty emblematic of The Killer as a whole: finding interest in the monotony. Because while, on a surface level, this movie follows the tried and true hallmarks of a story about an assassin's job going wrong and them going on a path of vengeance during the fallout to a T, it's all in the execution -- pun very much intended. If anything else, this film is just further evidence of David Fincher's sheer raw power as a director and storyteller (like we even needed it), because he takes what is plainly a by-the-numbers script and makes it absolutely riveting and even a little hypnotic. It's pretty plain to see that Fincher is perhaps using this as an excuse to further hone his grasp on vibes and style, but this movie also functions great on just a procedural level. And even on that level, this film executes with a slickness and precision -- even thoughtfulness -- that only a master like Fincher could achieve. His sense of pacing here is perfect, his staging of all the scenes is great, he's able to craft tension effortlessly and even in scenes that are familiar to the genre...by all accounts, a movie this straightforward shouldn't be this great, but it is. Michael Fassbender is owed a lot of credit, too, because he brings a certain quality to the character that's at once both cold and fascinating, the perfect example of a professional in full control of what he's doing -- which, I suppose, is an appropriate mirror of sorts for Fincher himself here. Some people have called this whole film a parallel to the filmmaking process itself in certain ways, and I can see/get on board with that. But also looking at this as purely an exercise in genre, The Killer is one extremely slick piece of entertainment that emphasizes the value of genre pieces when they have clear visions and defined styles behind them, as well as being a welcome return to form for Fincher after the disappointing Mank. This is one of my favorite movies of the year so far. It's good to have you back, David.
****/****
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PG Cooper
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Post by PG Cooper on Nov 23, 2023 11:52:44 GMT -5
On October 13th, 2014, my partner and I saw our first movie in theaters together. That film was David Fincher's Gone Girl, and despite the fact that my partner and I are still together, it's taken until 2023 for us to see another Fincher in theaters again. We did watch Mank and all of Mindhunter together, but Fincher's association with Netflix has kept him off my big-screens (and the pandemic didn't help). But after a long nine years, Fincher is back in theaters. Limited, sure, Netflix remains a creepy little gremlin hoarding all of its "CoNtEnT" on streaming, but thanks to my homies at The Screening Room, I could see The Killer the best way possible. And what a joy that is. Fincher is too detailed and precise a director for his work to be constrained to the small screen, and those skills are put to great use with this movie.
The Killer is almost comical in how it strips down the template of a hitman/career criminal archetype to its barest essentials. A perfectionist assassin fucks up a high-profile job, his handlers make it personal by going after a loved one, and he goes on a revenge path. And in terms of plot or character, there's not much more to it than that. Michael Fassbender's protagonist doesn't have a backstory or any goals beyond what's immediately in front of him, nor does his revenge story spark any arc, and most characters outside of Fassbender's lead are only in one scene. This is a film entirely concerned with process instead of plot: all the work that goes into getting access to a target, assessing and acquiring necessary tools for a job, and traveling both locally and globally. That last point is especially prominent. So much of the film is set in planes, cabs, ferries, and long car-rides that Fincher could have titled it The Commuter had Liam Neeson not already used it.
The movie is about how its Killer kills, but also how he kills time. The opening set-piece especially observes with some understated humour how the protagonist not only sets up the various complex details necessary to support his work, but also how he uses music and his own thoughts to whittle away the many hours in-between the split-second where he pulls a trigger. By stripping so much plot away, and by avoiding the cliches of "one last job" or a criminal finding their humanity, the film can instead stew in the pleasure of sheer detail. It's hypnotic, and that the film also builds to a handful of incredibly sharp violent set-pieces which offer a dramatic spike in excitement is all the better. Fincher has certainly made more complex and ambitious movies before (and I suspect he will again) but The Killer is a wonderful playground for him to flex his unparalleled sense of craft and luxuriate in the detail-oriented process of a like-minded obsessive perfectionist defined by a mercenary-esque loyalty to a job. I enjoyed it a lot.
A-
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