David Fincher (“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”) has defined cinema since the 1990s. With “The Game,” “Seven,” “Fight Club,” “The Social Network” and “Verblendung,” the Denver-born director repeatedly proved himself a master of precise suspense cinema. The filmmaker is now under contract with Netflix – and with ‘The murdererHis latest joke appears today on the streaming service with the red N.
That’s what ‘The Murderer’ is about
The unnamed professional killer (Michael Fassbender) works around the world to kill people with great precision for his client. His latest assignment takes him to the French capital, where the usual routine awaits him: observe, explore, wait. The murder should follow when the intended victim appears.
But the killer surprisingly botches his job. Missing his victim with the sniper rifle sets off a serious chain of events that follows the killer to his own secret hometown in the Dominican Republic. There is only one way out: he must break one of his iron rules and act from personal motivation…
A lesson in precision filmmaking
Did you miss “The Killer” in theaters? No problem! Because the film will be released on Netflix more than two weeks later, you can watch the ice-cold thriller from the comfort of your home – and it’s worth it! The official FILMSTARTS review gave it 4.5 out of 5 possible stars. In his conclusion, our author Björn Becher writes:
“Contently, ‘The Killer’ may have nothing more to offer than a simple B-movie. But that’s not the point of this excellent Netflix original: With immersive sound, top-notch visuals and incredibly precise editing, David Fincher continually subverts expectations while paying tribute to his great role models (especially Jean-Pierre Melville).”
We also spoke extensively about “The Killer” in the FILMSTARTS podcast Canvas Love. Moderator Pascal Reis and his guests Björn Becher and Christoph Petersen are not only enthusiastic about what is probably the best action scene of the year, with which David Fincher even takes the wind out of the sails of “John Wick: Chapter 4”. It is also about the very personal meaning of ‘The Killer’ in Fincher’s work. Please listen!
Even though David Fincher essentially returns to his thriller roots with ‘The Killer’, there are many more (meta) levels in the film that make the film incredibly interesting. In addition to his staging precision, which goes so far that the form becomes the content, the handling of male iconography proves to be an interesting subject, especially in Fincher’s work. Like I said, we can only really recommend “The Killer”. Both as a genre film and as a navel-gazing reflection on Fincher’s work.