A killer of a film ... if you've not watched the genre extensively

David Fincher’s new film, The Killer, is based on a French graphic novel and centred on an unnamed contract killer, played by Michael Fassbender.

It opens in Paris, where the eponymous assassin is stationed in an empty building opposite a posh hotel, waiting for his target to arrive. Narrated by The Killer himself, he explains his processes, the “logistics” of the what he does and his philosophy – essentially, that he must have no empathy whatsoever and that, in a world where few are able to be at ‘the top’, he has chosen to be one of those.

But when the contract arrives, it all goes pear shaped and The Killer must take action fast if he is to escape.

From then on, as his own life is threatened, he can no longer play by his own rules, but has to improvise.

The film has had mixed reviews – primarily because many reviewers note that the ‘cold-blooded contract killer’ has been done many times before – sometimes better and sometimes worse.

For me, that wasn’t a problem – I’ve not even seen The Day of the Jackal all the way through – so it never felt like a rehash of something I’ve seen countless times before.

Fassbender is utterly chilling – most particularly in the long opening scenes where he’s waiting and preparing – his face, physicality and voiceover mesmerising. I have seen reviews that regard the narration, which carries on throughout the film, as ‘pretentious’, but for me, it worked very well and helps illustrate just how much the character has cut himself off from humanity.

Or has he?

Part of the fun here is seeing where, in the circumstances in which he finds himself, he breaks his own ‘code’. And whether he really is as utterly emotionless as he likes to claim.

Erik Messerschmidt’s cinemaphotography is striking. The use of tracks by The Smiths throughout – The Killer finds their music helps him concentrate – should perhaps make one want to slit one’s own wrists, but (and I am no Smiths fan) I think it works really well here, with more than a hint of the ironic.

As already said, you can’t take your eyes off Fassbender. Kerry O’Malley is really good as the secretary to a lawyer, but Tilda Swinton, in a cameo late in the film is simply … well, Tilda Swinton! She absolutely crackles and brings humour to the film – albeit it in a very dark form.

So my very personal take is that it’s worth seeing on a big screen – it’s distributed by Netflix, is on at only a select number of cinemas (I saw it at a Curzon) and is streaming now – but if you’ve seen lots of those ‘cold-blooded contract killer’ movies, you might not be as impressed as I was. 

It’s so much not my usual type of film – and I really wondered whether it would be too violent for me. I can’t watch much of The Sopranos or Deadwood – even though I completely understand that they are superb works of TV drama – because the violence (physical and language-wise) becomes overwhelming for me after a short while.

Here, Fincher has made a violent film that reminds me of The Silence of the Lambs, in that the actual violence itself is clear – and not remotely celebrated – but also not filmed in ways so as not to make it gratuitous.

I’d also note that, at 118 minutes, it’s really tight and not self-indulgent in an era when many films seem to come from a starting point of having to be over two hours.