R
netflix
The Very Best
8.4
8.4
Assassin Fassbender AND a Smiths needle drop? Yes, yes, and yes.
David Fincher's return to form almost ten years after Gone Girl turns the eponymous French graphic novel series into a stone-cold stunner. The Killer can be described as a crime thriller and a neo noir, but it's perfectly Fincherian in the ways it withholds information from the viewer, building up suspense in a masterful rhythm. The film opens on the inside of a construction site—a WeWork office to-be—where our Killer stalks his pray across the street. A rather static beginning, where nothing much happens: one may question the thriller qualities of the film during its first act for similar reasons, but just give it time; that's exactly what The Killer would say. But little does he know that time is something he doesn't have much of...
Unsurprisingly, Michael Fassbender is the perfect lead for such a subdued, violent piece. An actor whose emotional range has been challenged in quieter roles such as Shame's Brandon (multi-award nominee), he knows how to bottle up unspoken background traumas in his indecipherable male characters. The way he plays the lead—the nameless Killer—though includes a lot of self-reflexive, provocatively boring voiceover monologues, where Fassbinder's line delivery is paramount to his performance. Perhaps you never thought of him as a voice actor because of his striking physical presence (and I mean the gravity he exudes, not just the undisputed good looks), but part of the reason The Killer toes the line between self-deprecation and upmarket psychological thriller is precisely the Irish actor's low hum, his cadence, and patient pauses in his narration.
Fincher’s the man.
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