The Filler

Boredom is not a word that should be used to describe an action movie about a hit man, but The Killer is dull enough to merit it. Exquisitely dour, breathlessly empty filmmaking fluffs up a very basic story, and lots of logorrheic voiceover narration belies the title character’s otherwise laconic conversational skills. Who knew a stone-cold murderer could be such a Chatty Cathy? Must be all those solitary hours waiting like a coiled serpent to strike.

THE KILLER ★★★ (3/5 stars)
Directed by: David Fincher
Written by: Andrew Kevin Walker
Starring: Michael Fassbender, Arliss Howard, Charles Parnell, Kerry O’Malley, Sala Baker, Sophie Charlotte, Tilda Swinton
Running time: 118 mins

The Killer (Michael Fassbender), as he himself explains, is focused. “Stick to the plan,” he chants like a mantra in his head. “Anticipate, don’t improvise. Forbid empathy. Empathy is weakness. Leave no loose ends.” Those are among the guidelines he obsessively repeats. Guess what? He doesn’t stick to the plan. And he starts showing empathy. Uh-oh.

It all begins after the exacting assassin uncharacteristically botches a job during a Parisian stakeout. Waiting for the perfect moment to sniper-shoot a bullet into the heart of a rich target ensconced in a luxe penthouse, The Killer accidentally offs a sashaying dominatrix, whose randy gyrations get between his high-powered rifle and the horny mark. He flees the scene, slips out of the country, and beelines back to his posh home in the Dominican Republic—only to discover that other contract killers from his own agency have already broken into his house and horribly brutalized his girlfriend Magdala (Sophie Charlotte).

The violation of his personal space is what his shady New Orleans attorney-boss (Charles Parnell) labels an “unanticipated overage” of the not-so-fatal transaction. Seems extreme, but—to be fair—The Killer did fail to execute the execution. And his boss needs to make amends to the client by punishing his employee. One would think that somebody who purports to “forbid empathy” would understand that. But it’s enough to make The Killer realize that maybe he’s actually ready to retire. So he decides to track down the people who deigned to reprimand him for his sloppy service and seek vengeance on them all.

David Fincher’s burn-it-all down procedural—based a French bande-dessinée by Alexis “Matz” Nolent and Luc Jacamon—is less a nail-biting thriller and more a sleek but plodding gloomfest. We admire The Killer’s methodology: his six storage units scattered across the world housing ample arsenals and stacks of fake passports; his preference to hide in plain sight by sporting beige leisurewear and a touristy bucket hat; his knack for ordering Amazon products to break into high-rise luxury apartment buildings.

Some of his habits feel more like filmmaker flourishes that quickly grow old, like how he constantly listens to mope-rockers The Smiths whether he’s about to deliver a pressure-cooker kill shot or just cruise-control road-tripping on an empty highway. Or how his aliases are all riffs on characters from classic sitcoms, whether it’s Felix Unger, Archibald Bünker, Mr. Jefferson or Sam Malone. Or how he’ll occasionally puncture his own bone-dry ruminations with flat zingers like “Popeye the Sailor probably said it best: I am what I am.” How pop zen.

The Killer is a remarkably indistinct film, the kind of betrayed-assassin-seeks-revenge sandbox we’ve all seen from other directors countless times. One superior example that also has Fassbender in a memorable role is Steven Soderbergh’s Haywire, a much purer exercise in the same genre flex. Fincher even feels like he’s recycling himself, especially the Gone Girl sequences when Amy Dunne is simultaneously covering her nefarious tracks and plotting her deadly schemes to bend the world to her will.

Fincher is an architect of immorality, showcasing perversion in his films like it’s some sort of redemptive confessional. His best work can be wise about our human foibles; the lesser ones just seem to wallow in shadow worlds. The Killer falls short because it doesn’t add up to much, and traffics in petty insights about how bad people seem to know their ultimate fate is already sealed and all life is just borrowed time. As a director, Fincher never fails to make each scene absorbing and each shot a masterful composition. But this particular drama, with its earth-tone double-crosses and its whimper of a climax is far less than the sum of its very finely polished parts.