The Killer reviews

[Moviesandpizza]

Lived it! Best actor Michael fassbender

[Mister Tee]

There's not much to say about The Killer, which isn't to say it's bad in any way. Guillermo Del Toro has been quoted as saying of it "It's nice to see a movie that's also a film", and that sums things up fairly nicely. Fincher brings all his shooting prowess to bear, gives us an intelligent, immaculate piece of craft -- but, in the end, it's only a movie, something without much resonance. Ghost World aside, this is a chronic problem with adaptations of graphic novels: they lend themselves to lean story-telling, but lack the nuance novels provide, leaving one with a "that didn't amount to much" feeling at the end.

But I enjoyed the ride most of the way -- stipulating that thrillers/procedurals have long been my junk genre of choice. I found the dialogue in the Rear Window-y Paris section glibly fun (the "nothing is happening, that's the job" declarations almost a taunt from Walker/Fincher to their critics), loved the details of the visit to the lawyer's office. The only thing I actively didn't care for was The Brute -- the fight seemed to go on for-fucking-ever, and bored me senseless -- but the film picked up again with Tilda Swinton's scene, and the final encounter with Arliss Howard had enough surprise to it that it made the journey seem worthwhile, if still trivial.

Fincher remains, for me, a spectacular talent who too often seems to diminish his talent working in middling genres. But I'll still always watch his work, and largely enjoy it.

[Okri]

Yeah, I think I liked it slightly more than you, but a good snack with some good weed is about right. I'm just glad Fassbender is back on screen, to be honest.

[Sabin]

Now that it's out of the festival circuit, I'm seeing a slight backlash to the dismissals, that secretly this is a crucial piece of David Fincher text about anything ranging to his meticulous nature, to how he makes movies, to a satire-critique of his previous works. I don't think (consciously) Fincher is doing any of that. I know I could do a very charitable reading of how it's a few of those things, but at the end of the day I don't think it really matters because even if I believed in that reading I don't think it would make it a great film. The Killer feels like it's going to end up as something treasured from the B side of Fincher's oeuvre that never became a hit for some understandable reasons. I'll tell you my favorite thing about The Killer which I'm confident I experienced only because I saw it on the big screen. Because of how the film is constructed, I got the feeling that I was looking for from Inception. Slowly but surely because of the constant methodology and travel and missions and encounters and just the attention to detail that Fincher puts into every frame, it's like I was watching some kind of weird hit man dream unfold, and then it was over with a couple of similarities (that's no spoilers). I don't want to oversell it but I started off a little annoyed at it but then found myself enjoying it on those terms. It's not a full meal. It's a good snack and some good weed. If that sounds appealing, I'd definitely recommend going to the theater for it as opposed to Netflix.

[Mister Tee]

Doesn’t seem like a strong Oscar contender, especially considering Netflix’s full plate.

I'd say, in any of the past 3 years, it would have had a strong shot at making the best picture 10. But when it's jostling for a spot with Poor Things, Oppenheimer, The Holdovers, Killers of the Flower Moon, Barbie, All of Us Strangers, Maestro, Past Lives...good luck. I'd say it's maybe better positioned than Saltburn and Ferrari, but that's still a lot of ground to make up.

[Sabin]

Doesn’t seem like a strong Oscar contender, especially considering Netflix’s full plate.

[Mister Tee]

General take seems to be a strong thriller, "cold" (the Fincher specialty), maybe would have stood out more in a festival environment less bountiful than this year's

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