WHEN THE PLAN DOESN’T STICK

DAVID FINCHER’S THE KILLER (2023) 

Like the title, plot and interiority of the protagonist, modern master of dread and decline David Fincher keeps things thin in his latest thriller. 

I first visited Beacon, a hamlet about an hour north of New York City, nearly twenty years ago, seeking refuge in the Hudson Valley from the grip and pace of the metropolis. It features friendly people, wooded hills, a long main street, and reclaimed and renovated industrial and brick facilities along rivers and creeks that lead into the Hudson River. So, when late in David Fincher’s latest film, The Killer (2023), an address on a Rolodex card reads “BEACON, NY,” I sat up from my worsening slouch and flushed with excitement. I had spent the last few days reading and listening to critics acclaim Fincher for what has become known as his trademark obsessiveness and precision, often leading actors and crews through repeated takes to achieve a master’s vision for nuance and detail. But when Michael Fassbender’s unnamed contract assassin arrives at his destination, pursuing yet another victim we are not made to care much about – it isn’t Beacon. It’s a stand-in; a river town dupe. (It was apparently shot in a small town in Illinois.) 

This sense of misalignment and disconnection is present from the opening sequence, a Rear Window (1954) pastiche that drags on longer than it needs to. Based on a French graphic novel series by Alexis Nolent and Luc Jacamon, the story begins with our protagonist in Paris (real Paris, allegedly), fighting boredom on a slow-moving job, killing time by delivering platitudes about the craft to us via voiceover. What happens at the end of this sequence kicks us squarely into the action revenge genre, and things start moving. But a quicker pace can’t offset the feeling of being off balance that pervades the viewing experience.    

You might think a killer’s outfits should blend in so as not to call immediate attention; they don’t. Burner phones should surely be discarded carefully; they aren’t. And surely, anyone, be they pool boy or painter, would have more than The Smiths on their “work playlist” (which we’re forced to endure for the entire film whenever he’s alone); he doesn’t. Is this guy not human and needs to be loved? 

Viewers of Zodiac (2007), widely considered by many to be one of Fincher’s finest, if not his very best film, are treated to beautiful, on-location streets and valleys of San Francisco and its surroundings. The production design is diligent and textured, with wigs and bad ties galore, and the story hews close to history, profiling real murders that took place in the late 1960s. In The Killer, we have a ridiculous bucket hat in stylish Paris, a long trench coat in humid New Orleans and a hipster DJ style beanie on a billionaire, visual hang-ups that muck up the realism the film is clearly straining to achieve through the usual gun tech and talk, logistics of body cleanup and plain spoken language of the script. 

Which isn’t usually the challenge with a Fincher film. His stories are unforgettable, some of the most fascinating and well told of the last thirty years: the deft and inventive premise and execution of Fight Club (1999), an instant cult classic, with twists and turns that bubble delightfully under its gritty noir sheen; the empathy and emotionality in the underrated The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008). He succeeds at horror when he chooses, like the unforgettable sins of Se7en (1995). And, as these works show, he is a master of the pace of decline – he and his teams’ hands steady on the lever of dread and disaster that increase as the plot proceeds, rarely exhibited with more discipline than in The Game (1997).

We keep waiting for that signature grip, pace and decline to take hold here, and… they don’t. The Killer feels like being seated in a beige waiting room, with an intercom crackling boring idioms on repeat, and when finally you are called into the doctor’s office, the door flings open and you are knifed in the neck. There are some fantastic sequences, with none as jarring and eye-openingly real as a fight sequence right smack in the middle. After years of sanitized fight sequences – the poofs and pows of Marvel movies, the winking absurdity of the John Wick series – it is a thrill to see superbly choreographed action and brutal sound design, cleverly delivered in a dark house that you truly don’t know if our protagonist will ever exit. You feel the blood dripping, the bones crunching. It is a burst of lightning at the center of what is otherwise a slow, cloudy day of a film.

And here is where the highest praise for the film should be levied – on sound designer Ren Klyce and his incredible team. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross do their classic thing here with composition, to be sure, although later in the film the score drifts into effects and can be distracting. But it’s Klyce and his team that bring the killings to reality, or as close as they can get, even while the character development is as flat as Fassbender’s terrible clothes. 

And as characters go – who are they? A vital character faces assault and death and we know nothing about her. A hidden enterprise’s chief is reduced to caricature (nearly a clean swipe, in fact, from Mr. & Mrs. Smith from 2005). We are given no backstory, perhaps to drive home, as our killer repeats to us, that “the path of your life is behind you.” And it’s a long path to walk until finally Tilda Swinton arrives. Only a bold filmmaker uses a colossal talent like her for merely as long as it takes to enjoy a couple shots of whisky. (I would love to have seen their roles switched, with Swinton as our assassin, swooning about Santo Domingo in a muumuu, cribbing from Horace, staring endlessly from within parked cars in epic sunglasses.) If only characters got as much screen time as product placements and brand names, which occur frequently enough here to put Michael Bay to shame, and with such an uncharacteristically heavy and repeated hand, there is little to do by the end except roll your eyes. (WeWork went out of business. You can get anything on Amazon. We get it.) 

Is Fincher taking a break from big, serious, thorough projects? Having some fun by loosening up? Jane Campion swerved from serious drama over into erotic thriller to give us In the Cut (2003). A pre-Poirot Kenneth Branagh took an intermission from Shakespeare to make  Thor (2011). Scorsese went on a light, animated escape with Hugo (2011). Classics may not be, but they represent accomplished filmmakers trying something new and shifting their style. And while this may not rank in the Fincher top five, it is still a captivating actor doing his best with minimal tools, a slick thriller with a great set piece or two, and an interesting take on a well worn genre. If you’re thinking it’s a reason to start worrying that this particular master of filmmaking might be losing his grip; it isn’t.