My weekly movie reviews. You can also read these on letterboxd.
This week focuses on David Fincher’s latest film, THE KILLER.
THE KILLER (2023)
Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars
I keep reading in reviews and reactions online that THE KILLER is enjoyable but likely to be remembered. I must have watched a different film because I found David Fincher’s latest to be one of the most efficiently executed thrillers in recent years and I’ll be thinking about it for quite a while.
Perhaps the moviegoing crowd and critics have forgotten the importance of a well-crafted suspense film. Not every movie has to reinvent or bend the genre in a different way. What Fincher does with THE KILLER is embrace the history of cinema while giving us a new film that feels original and unpretentious. However much I can see the influences of Melville and others crime masters, those touches are slight. For this viewer, THE KILLER felt like a work of its own rather than a homage to other movies and in an era of nostalgia that was quite refreshing.
Michael Fassbender follows in the footsteps of Alain Delon and Ryan O’Neal with his cold, calculating, but not heartless performance. Behind the simple, rigorous narrative, his inner thoughts give the story layers of depth. Beyond entertainment, the movie had me thinking about work, life, and relationships all the way to its last frames which left me wondering (in a good way).
David Fincher is the only filmmaker who came up in the 90s who continues to surprise and deliver solid movies, some better than others but always worth watching. His peers, from Tarantino to Wes Anderson and the Coen Brothers, have gone down the rabbit hole of self-indulgence whereas David kept his head down and worked hard. And that’s what THE KILLER is, something we don’t see much these days, a solid piece of work.
Watched on Netflix.
