movie reviewWe saw him before: the silent, lonely assassin as the main character in a film that takes us into his cold, methodical existence. The killer – now in the cinema – of the renowned director David Fincher (Fight club, Seven, The social network), does not explore new terrain. Yet you hold your breath for almost two hours.
The first and possibly best act in particular shows that the film is based on a (French) comic book series. The title character, who remains nameless for the entire running time, is almost literally stuck in a frame. For days he hides in the attic of an empty apartment in Paris with a sniper rifle, waiting for his target to finally appear behind the window across the street.
He fills his time with some morning exercise, a snack, a drink and a lot of staring. The trick is not to get nervous and above all to stay awake. A normal person would go crazy, but for the Killer (played water cold by X men-Aactor Michael Fassbender) is this piece of cake. Because don’t think that as a assassin you lead an exciting life. Those who get bored quickly should choose a different course, it sounds dry in one of the many voice-overs.
Sounds boring? Not in the hands of a master filmmaker like Fincher. The hypnotic lighting, the dynamic camera work, the buzzing electronic music of the rock band Nine Inch Nails; Under his direction, the best is achieved from sometimes minimal settings. And those voice-overs – often a somewhat lazy film instrument – provide a fascinating insight into the ‘moral’ codes of his main character. Especially because they are not consistent with his actions, as it soon becomes apparent.
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A modest spoiler (we’re talking about it here or the first fifteen minutes): that Parisian job goes wrong and the intended target escapes unscathed. The consequences are disastrous. When the clients assault his girlfriend, our killer launches a bloody reprisal. Fincher consciously keeps us at an emotional distance. It is not necessarily about feeling the love for his girl, but about slowly seeing cracks appearing in his cynical philosophy of life.
Blackly comic
At first his internal monologues still sound deadly serious. ‘Only do what you are paid to do, show no empathy, anticipate what is coming, do not improvise…’ These mantras are repeated over and over again, but also increasingly by the Killer betray yourself. What does he actually want to tell himself and us as viewers? There’s something darkly comic about it all.
The killer is a somewhat nihilistic film that is also about nihilism, but it is above all an exercise in style. And what style! Fincher certainly made better films, but few people manipulate the medium as brilliantly as he did.
Director: David Fincher. Starring: Michael Fassbender, Tilda Swinton, Charles Parnell and Arliss Howard
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