He (Michael Fassbender) is a contract killer. If you can afford him, the target you wish dead must be of certain regard. That’s because you are not hiring someone to haphazardly gun another down in the streets. You are hiring a patient man, an intelligent man. A man as dedicated to his work as a monk is dedicated to prayer.

For days, he waits in an unfinished office building with nothing more than a space heater, a high-powered rifle, and his music. He listens to The Smiths and only The Smiths. And he narrates constantly. About his level of commitment to the task, how his outfit is modeled after a German tourist he once met, how he slows his heart rate to eliminate vibrations in the body, how McDonald’s produces a meal consisting of 10 grams of valuable protein for one Euro. How he is batting 1,000 in the killing game ever since that mob boss he was supposed to take out keeled over and died from natural causes right in front of him. He wears latex gloves wherever he goes, sprays down sinks with alcohol after washing his hands, and keeps fit with yoga. Then, finally, after days of waiting, the target arrives at the hotel room across the street, opens the blinds, and our dedicated, methodical, meticulous killer for hire misses the shot.

Based on the French comic book series by Alexis Nolent and Luc Jacamon, The Killer is a revenge story set in the shadowy world of contractors. After our unnamed assassin fails to complete his mission, two other killers for hire are sent to his home in the Dominican Republic and beat his lover within an inch of her life. With little information to go on, our killer tracks down the cab driver (Gabriel Polanco) who played chaperone to the hit, then the lawyer (Charles Parnell) who acts as the liaison between the clients and the contractors, then the killers (Sala Baker and Tilda Swinton) sent to execute the hit, and finally the client (Arliss Howard) who assigned the hit that set the whole plot in motion.

Story wise, it’s pretty standard stuff, and recounting it here makes it sound a lot more boring than it is. True, a good deal of The Killer’s runtime is spent watching Fassbender’s assassin obtain a weapon and ditch it. Call someone and then destroy the phone. Fly from one airport with one passport, rent a car with another, and then board another plane with another name to escape detection. Rinse, wash, repeat.

That director David Fincher succeeds in making the material engaging is thanks to two effective tactics: The first being the viewer’s relationship to the killer, who is both our guide into this world through almost constant narration and the second because he’s the focus of the narrative so we want to see him succeed no matter what he’s doing. No one’s innocent here, but Fincher finds moments where the killer is in jeopardy and milks it for all that its worth. It’s a tactic Alfred Hitchcock perfected, one where the audience unwittingly roots for the bad guy simply through cinematic manipulation.

It’s also worth noting that the killer is not infallible. He’s intelligent, methodical, and careful but not inhuman. Nor is he delusional, which also makes him strangely likable. In two instances, he could, maybe should, kill his mark a little quicker—just to be on the safe side. But he let’s them talk, wants them to talk, because he’s as curious as we are to understand the engine behind the plot. In one of these scenes, Swinton steals the show as a professional killer who always knew this moment would come but delayed it so long that she seems surprised it finally caught up with her.

The Killer has about a half-dozen of these moments and about twice as many Smith songs, which makes up for Erik Messerschmidt’s sometimes murky cinematography and Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ score that sometimes sounds rote and sometimes sounds like the noise my stomach makes when I’m hungry.

The Killer (2023)
Directed by David Fincher
Screenplay by Andrew Kevin Walker
Based on the comic book series by Alexis Nolent, Luc Jacamon
Produced by Ceán Chaffin, William Doyle, Peter Mavromates
Starring: Michael Fassbender, Gabriel Polanco, Charles Parnell, Kerry O’Malley, Sala Baker, Tilda Swinton, Arliss Howard
Netflix, Rated R, Running time 118 minutes, Opens in theaters on Oct. 27, 2023, and on Netflix on Nov. 3, 2023.