Review by Tim Robins
WARNING: CHEESE-RELATED SPOILER
The Killer was all that I feared it would be – a joyless tale of yet another man living his life by a code of conduct that is best expressed by his silence and, as is often the case, by killing people.
The focus on the man who does the killing is familiar from Targets (1968) to the John Wick series (2014 onwards) with The Day of the Jackal (1973) in between. Heck, as The Guardian reported, The Killer was one of three films about assassins that premiered at this year’s Venice Film Festival.
The film stars Michael Fassbender as the titular ‘killer’, a paid assassin who is top of his game until his plans go awry, and he must avenge an assault on his girlfriend who has been made to pay for his mistakes. Cue a series of chapters as the Killer picks off people involved in organising the hit and the subsequent retaliation. If you can bide your time, one of these wrong’uns is played by Tilda Swinton, who’s cool, dispassionate and sly character is realised without the actress raising a sweat.
The Killer, not to be confused with John Woo’s The Killer (1990), is based on a series of bande dessines written by ‘Matz’ (Alexis Nolent) and drawn by Luc Jacamon. Previously published in English by Archaia Entertainment, a new edition of the series’ second run, The Killer: Affairs of the State was released by American publisher Boom! Studios last year, and a collection back in February, ahead of the film’s cinema release. However, by the time you read this review, the film will have transferred to Netflix. The short, selective cinema release was largely contrived to generate more publicity and prestige.
The Killer’s rapid move to TV has led even Mark Kermode to ask a normally shocking question, for a film critic, “Is the film best seen on the big screen or on TV?” Worse, Kermode concluded that TV is just fine. The film’s cinematographer Erik Messerschidt, understandably, argues otherwise.
Certainly, the film’s cinematography is excellent at evoking a sense of place. Messerschidt captures the cloying Florida heat and uses light sources to bathe the film in a sickly yellow hue. The location hopping has a credibility that moves beyond the cursory tourist-eye view of a typical James Bond movie.
Michael Fassbinder plays the killer of the title. He seems to be the go-to actor for cold, expressionless characters, so is well cast here. In a narration, the killer tells us that his aim is to be unnoticeable and, for this reason, he dresses like a German tourist. But he actually looks like Gerald Scarfe’s illustrations of Hunter S. Thompson in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. This may be intentional. The Killer has a dry sense of humour.
The film has been described as director David Fincher’s most personal film yet. If so, Fincher has a desert for a soul. In post production, Fincher added a bunch of songs by The Smiths. He was attracted by the groups sardonic wit. Fassbinder’s unnamed character listens to Smiths’ tracks as part of his process.
If the music is meant to give an insight into the character’s psyche, it doesn’t succeed. Neither does the self-narration. I sense it was intended to be profound, yet bathetic. In the event it is only the latter. It occurred to me that the graphic novel probably illustrated the opening assassination attempt in silence. Comics do that kind of thing well. During the film, I just wanted Fassbinder to shut up. There’s only so much banality I can cope with.
The Killer’s character is best placed in a post-Reservoir Dogs/Pulp Fiction comic book landscape, in which 2000AD readers and some creators came to see a tight-lipped man wearing a Once-Upon-A-Time-In-The West-dust-jacket and carrying a big gun as the inspiring character in their lives. “Could you write a story about a man in a long coat who kills people?” I was once asked. With nothing else to go on, I couldn’t.
In short, the film is a series of set pieces that have been played before. A moment in which the killer reaches for a weapon and instead draws a cheese grater got the one laugh from the audience. The arid world, built around a non character drew me in, but not enough to stop me wondering which scene would be the last chapter.
The Killer pays a high price for having a virtual blank as its central character and, given the cost of going to the cinema or maintaining several streaming services, so will you.
Tim Robins
• The Killer is available on Netflix now
• Killer: Affairs of the State
Caught and put to work as an on-call assassin for the French government, Killer has to adjust to working with a handler, his new partner Nicolas, a former special forces operative, and living life as a civilian. A network of city-wide corruption awaits, getting Killer even more involved in the midst of an escalating crisis, when he just wants to get back to his nihilistic lifestyle. But, as feeling for a coworker arise in his day job, will Killer be dangerously distracted, torn between two identities?
The Eisner Award-nominated series starring everyone’s favourite nameless assassin by artist Luc Jacamon and writer Matz (The Black Dahlia) makes its long awaited return!
Collects The Killer: Affairs of the State #1-6 | ISBN: 978-1684158584
A freelance journalist and Doctor Who fanzine editor since 1978, Tim Robins has written on comics, films, books and TV programmes for a wide range of publications including Starburst, Interzone, Primetime and TV Guide.
His brief flirtation with comics includes ghost inking a 2000AD strip and co-writing a Doctor Who strip with Mike Collins. Since 1990 he worked at the University of Glamorgan where he was a Senior Lecturer in Cultural and Media Studies and the social sciences. Academically, he has published on the animation industry in Wales and approaches to social memory. He claims to be a card carrying member of the Politically Correct, a secret cadre bent on ruling the entire world and all human thought.
Categories: Features, Film, Other Worlds, Reviews
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It strikes me that this (along with superhero films) is an extension of the Western – lone vigilante rides into town, someone who hardly speaks but definitely shouldn’t be messed with, come to hand out some rough justice to whoever done him wrong. All part of that colonial thing America has never managed to get over despite endless mythologising, in my humble opinion.