"My process is purely logistical, narrowly focused by design. I'm not here to take sides. It's not my place to formulate any opinion. No one who can afford me needs to waste time winning me to some cause. I serve no God or country, I fly no flag. If I'm effective, it's because of one simple fact. I. Don't. Give. A. Fuck."
—The Killer
The Killer is a psychological action thriller directed by David Fincher and starring Michael Fassbender. It adapts the French comic book series The Killer by Alexis "Matz" Nolent and Luc Jacamon.
After a fateful near miss, an assassin battles his employers, and himself, on an international manhunt he insists isn't personal.
The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival on September 3, 2023, where it competed for the Golden Lion, and began its limited theatrical release on October 27, 2023, before streaming on November 10, 2023, by Netflix.
No relation to John Woo's The Killer.
Previews: Teaser
''Stick to the tropes. Anticipate, don't improvise":
- Accidental Murder: At the beginning of the film, the Killer is preparing to snipe his target from across a street. The target has hired a dominatrix, who suddenly and unexpectedly walks in front of the Killer's scope just as he takes his shot, accidentally killing her instead. Botching this hit is what triggers the rest of the movie's events.
- Action Film, Quiet Drama Scene: In reverse: the film is mostly a very methodical thriller with a lot of murder but no action scenes...save for a lengthy, brutal brawl between The Killer and The Brute that takes up several minutes.
- Actually Pretty Funny:
- A dark one. While Dolores is in an elevator with the Killer and Hodges's corpse inside a recycling bin, a guy sees the bin, and jokes about helping the Killer "get rid of the body". The frightened Dolores can only hysterically laugh.
- The Expert's bear joke. It even gets a mild reaction out of the Killer.
- Ain't Too Proud to Beg: Multiple times, and only one of them works.
- Leo, when he's held at gunpoint in his cab. He gets a Boom, Headshot!
- Hodges couches his attempt in pragmatic language meant to appeal to the Killer's own sense of self-preservation. But it's still pretty obvious he's doing his utmost to try and save his own skin. He drowns in his own blood after the Killer gives him a few nails to the chest for his efforts.
- Dolores alternates between begging for her life or killing her in a way that her insurance money will be left behind for her family. She gets a Neck Snap.
- The Client pleads multiple times that he doesn't have a problem with the Killer. And once he realizes who the Killer is, starts pleading that he didn't fully realize the repercussions of purchasing the "insurance" from Hodges.
- Ambiguous Situation: Exactly why the Killer decides to spare the Client at the end is left ambiguous, especially given his ruthless efforts to cover his own tracks up to that point and him already being deadset on killing him regardless of its potential consequences. Did he realize he'd allowed things to get too personal and stop himself before he did something that would bring too much heat down on him to avoid, or did he grow a conscience and decide to let the Client go after realizing he was genuinely ignorant of the consequences of his 'insurance' guarantee.
- AM/FM Characterization: The Killer regularly listens to The Smiths. Depending on your interpretation, the idea that a cold-blooded hitman would listen to such an emotionally earnest pop band is either ironic or an early hint that The Killer is Not So Stoic.
- Amoral Attorney: The Lawyer, who runs his “practice” with The Killer.
- Arc Words: The Killer has many mantras that he repeats in voice over, including "Stick to the plan," "Anticipate, don’t improvise," "Trust no one," "Forbid empathy," "Fight only the battle you’ve been paid to fight," and so on.
- Arms Dealer: The Killer buys a pistol out of the trunk of a gun dealer's SUV beneath an overpass. The dealer runs commentary on the Killer's choices and notes how he brought his own silencer.
- Ass Shove: The Brute falls bottom first into a table leg and this is the result. He's fairly nonplussed about it
- Author Avatar: Various reviews have concluded that the titular Killer is one for David Fincher himself. Much like Fincher, the Killer is a noted perfectionist and, much like Fincher's films, has a rather nihilistic and cynical attitude about life and the world. However, the discrepancy between how the Killer views himself and reality would make this something of a Self-Parody.
- Bavarian Fire Drill: The Killer gains access to the Lawyer's office by disguising himself as some sort of recycled waste worker, which prompts a package deliverer to hold the door open for him.
- Black Comedy: In true Fincher fashion, some darkly comedic moments do abound.
- After perforating the Lawyer's lungs with a nail gun, the Killer begins narrating that he estimated it should take around six to seven minutes for him to succumb to his injuries. However, as he talks it becomes increasingly clear that he may have miscalculated, and just as this fact begins to dawn on him, he looks down to find that the Lawyer is already dead.
- The Killer fishes out an Improvised Weapon from a kitchen drawer during his fight with the Brute and is clearly disappointed when it turns out to be a cheese grater.
- When surprised by the Killer standing in his living room, the Client awkwardly struggles to end the call he's on.
- Bland-Name Product: Among the large amount of Product Placement with real brands, the Baliquinox fitness gym stands out as a fake brand of luxury gyms based on the Equinox chain.
- Book Ends: In the beginning of the film The Killer muses that the strong always take advantage of the weak in society and that you should thus always strive to be one of the strong. In the very end he returns to that same observation, but concludes that he may actually be one of "the weak" in that equation, implicitly acknowledging how much he dropped the ball on his own ethos during the film's events.
- Brick Joke: Leo describes the Expert as looking like a q-tip. When the Killer tracks her down, he's perplexed by the accuracy of Leo's description when he sees her hairstyle.
- Burner Phones: The Killer stomps on several phones and even goes out of his way to burn the SIM card from one as well.
- But for Me, It Was Tuesday: Lampshaded by the Killer when he notes that the Client has no idea who he is, implying that the Client has been up to so many nefarious dealings that a recent Contract on the Hitman doesn't even register to him.
- Character Tic: The Killer is constantly checking his heart rate on his smart watch in an attempt to maintain his calm.
- Combat Pragmatist: The Killer makes use of improvised weapons throughout his fight with The Brute.
- Consummate Professional: The Killer is a fantastically thorough and precise individual. Unfortunately for him, all of that preparation doesn't ensure a flawless execution.
- Contract on the Hitman: The film's inciting incident is a contract being put out on the Killer for bungling a contract.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: The Client is a very wealthy businessman with all of his television and computer screens in his lavish penthouse showing stock market activity.
- Crazy-Prepared: The Killer has a cache of guns, cash, false identification, and other supplies buried in his yard. He also maintains six storage units around the world stocked to the brim with more.The Killer: There are more than fifty thousand storage facilities in the U.S. I have units in six. I like to imagine, once the automatic payments have dried up, the episode of Storage Wars where they cut the lock on one of mine and get a look inside.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: The Killer shoots several long nails into Hodges's chest, which he predicts would cause Hodges to drown to death in his own blood in six to seven minutes. He dies sooner than the Killer expects, but there's no doubt that it was still a grueling death for the man.
- Cultured Badass: Played with. The Killer has a very philosophical worldview and seems to be pretty well-read. He used to study law and comments on Dylan Thomas. He's not perfect, however, as shown when he quotes Aleister Crowley's "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law" but can't remember who said it.
- Death by Irony: Let's take it from the top.
- The dominatrix - a woman who controls and performs for a living - dies because she accidentally distracted and interrupted the wrong person at precisely the wrong moment.
- The Lawyer's cover identity is a patent attorney. Killer uses several everyday devices to gain entry to Hodges' office. And for a professional communicator, Hodges doesn't do a very good job of talking Killer out of it.
- Brute invaded Killer's home and sexually assaulted his girlfriend. When Killer invades Brute's home, Killer knocks Brute onto a table leg in an.. uncomfortable area. Also, about five seconds after Brute uses his brain and realizes who Killer is, Killer shoots Brute dead. From Brute's own bedroom.
- Expert manages to psychologically unbalance Killer, and tries to trick him by playing on his feelings, but he quickly and professionally caps her in the head. The high-class, smart, well-educated professional, logical woman tries to use an extremely old emotional trick and a knife. One of the oldest, most basic weapons, ever.
- Deadly Euphemism: At the end of the film when confronted by The Killer, the Client makes clear as he begs the Killer not to kill him that he had no damned clue what the Expert was selling him when she offered him "insurance" to deal with a man who was suing him. The Killer accepts the man's ignorance, makes a further threat to never try to look for him, and leaves.
- Deconstructed Character Archetype: The titular character acts as one of the poetic Professional Killer originated in Le Samouraï and nowadays found in films like John Wick. Both the Killer and John Wick are both consumate professionals who work for larger assassin networks but the Killer is not borderline superhuman like the latter - he's prone to making mistakes and will often default to cheap tricks and subterfuge and is physically capable but unremarkable. Whilst assassin characters like John Wick are kept likable by making them Nice to the Waiter or giving some sort of code, the Killer is purely selfish, and at times acts more like a meticulous Serial Killer than any kind of professional - something that Hodges learns the hard way. The Killer's remorselessness and lack of code highlight how horrific, and even kind of pathetic, someone who murders people for a paycheck would really be. The opening also shows just how tedious such work can be as the Killer has to simply wait for hours for an opportunity to take out his target, sitting in an empty room and staring out a window.
- Defiant to the End: The Killer fires three large industrial nails into the Lawyer's lungs in order to get the names of the assassins he contracted, offering to call 911 to save him if he gives them up. The Lawyer instead spends his last moments of life cursing the Killer out before he dies.
- Diagnosis from Dr. Badass: Subverted. The Killer shoots The Lawyer in the chest with a nail gun and then pontificates on the nature of his wounds and how long it'd take for him to die (six or seven minutes) so he can interrogate him in that meantime, but quickly realizes he miscalculated pretty badly as The Lawyer expires in 30 seconds tops.
- Disposable Sex Worker: The Killer accidentally kills a prostitute/dominatrix instead of his intended target in the beginning of the film.
- Dramatic Irony: When a man sees that the Killer (disguised as a sanitation worker) is taking out a recycling bin, he jokes if he needs help getting rid of "the body." We as well as Dolores know that this is exactly what Dolores is doing, which causes her to laugh hysterically.
- Establishing Character Moment: The Killer is introduced staring out the window of an abandoned building, huddled under a jacket for warmth as his voiceover notes how physically exhausting it is to do nothing. Over the course of several days, he outlines his killing ethos while maintaining a strict routine to stay fit, aware and inconspicuous as he awaits his target. This whole sequence establishes the Killer as cold, meticulous, patient, and unglamorous.
- Even Evil Can Be Loved:
- The Killer has a girlfriend who is completely aware of what he does for a living but nonetheless still loves him. Their mutual love for each other is one of the Killer's very few redeeming qualities.
- The Brute's dog, Diva, charges into the house and finds its owner shot dead by the Killer. It audibly whines as it nuzzles the Brute's hand and furiously tries to chase after the Killer when he escapes, going as far as to smash through a glass door to get him.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones:
- The Killer is a cynical, ruthless killer-for-hire who doesn't care much for most of humanity, but it's clear that he loves his girlfriend Magdala very much. His distress at seeing her get brutally attacked is one of the few times he shows any overt emotion. The Killer also seems to treat her brother as family.
- The Expert is implied to have a husband, whom the Killer methodically considers framing for her coming murder.
- Even Evil Has Standards:
- It's never remarked upon, but the Killer goes out of his way to avoid harming the Brute's guard dog, Diva. Rather than simply shoot her, he drugs her. Rather than use a much larger dose than necessary to ensure that she stays out, he tries to accurately gauge her weight to determine a proper dose. He ends up underdosing her, and when Diva wakes up, he runs away rather than shoot her.
- When the Killer tracks down the Expert, she says that she tried to convince the Brute not to attack Magdala at all to no avail. It's left ambiguous as to whether she's telling the truth or not, and even then, it probably wasn't with the most altruistic of intentions.
- Exact Words: Dolores promises to give the Killer the information he needs to track down the Brute, the Expert, and the Client in exchange for him making sure her death doesn't look 'wrong'. Once they've gone to her home and she gives him the information he needs, he quickly snaps her neck just as she begins going down her stairway, ensuring that her death will look like nothing more a tragic accident to anyone who finds her.
- Face Death with Dignity: After some initial shock, The Expert takes her incoming murder mostly in stride, chatting with The Killer fairly amicably. When being directed to the site of her death, she slips and tries to appeal to the Killer as a gentleman; after he kills her in response, it's revealed she had a knife.
- Former Teen Rebel: The Client, a rich, corrupt businessman, wears an old indie rock T-shirt and a beanie while at home.
- The Generic Guy: The Killer takes on this persona, trying to be a completely generic person that most people wouldn't think twice about so that he can be Beneath Suspicion.
- Grey-and-Gray Morality: Nobody is truly good in this movie, but also not wholly evil. Those who could be considered "good" like Dolores, Magdala, and Marcus still have some shady aspects to them, considering all three are still complicit to assassinations. Those who are "evil" are shown to have people (and animals) they care about and are Punch Clock Villains who were simply doing a job they'd been hired for.
- Gory Discretion Shot: As with other Fincher films, used extensively.
- Hawaiian-Shirted Tourist: The Killer's preferred outfit is based on a German tourist he once saw because he thinks it makes him unmemorable and causes people to avoid him. The outfit is mostly beige but includes a Hawaiian shirt.
- Hidden Weapons: As the Expert dies, we see she had a knife hidden up her sleeve. No wonder one of the Killer’s mantras is “Trust no one.”
- Hypocrite: The Killer's voiceover repeatedly asserts that he has no empathy, doesn't care about the motives behind his work, and only fights what he's paid to fight. However, most of what he does throughout the movie has a heavy undertone of an It's Personal revenge quest, something he's most definitely not being paid to fight. He also seems to hesitate and question his actions on several occasions. While staking out the Brute's house, his voiceover even lampshades the trope when he notes, "'No empathy?' How's that working out?"
- I Have Many Names: Along with none given, the Killer cycles through multiple identities throughout the movie.
- IKEA Weaponry: Of course the protagonist, being a professional hitman, carefully assembles a sniper rifle for his first attempt in the movie.
- Implacable Man: The Brute turns out to be very hard to kill, tanking nearly everything the Killer throws at him. Even having his groin impaled by a table leg barely inconveniences him, and he's still trying to fight after being shot in the chest twice.
- I Need a Freaking Drink: When the Killer meets the Expert at a restaurant to confront her, she orders a flight of whiskeys, knowing her death is imminent. Although the Killer initially refuses her offer of shot, he eventually takes one after the conversation starts hitting close to home.
- Jitter Cam: The cinematographer has discussed how various instances of shakey cam in the movie is meant to convey the sudden loss of control the Killer has over a situation. For instance, once he kills the wrong person in the opening scene, the camera which had been stationary for the entire time is suddenly unstable as the Killer rushes to disassemble his gun and escape.
- Job Title: The Killer.
- Leave No Witnesses: The Killer disposes of anyone who's even remotely related to the assassination plot, even people like the taxi driver who picked up the Brute and the Expert's fare or Hodges' secretary Dolores.
- Karma Houdini:
- The Client, who paid for the initial hit, is spared by the Killer in the end.
- The Killer himself, despite murdering a lot of people of the course of the story, remains free to live a life of peace at film's end, though his girlfriend's PTSD-induced jumpiness and his own nervous eye twitch in the end suggest that his retirement will be far from perfect.
- Karma Houdini Warranty: The Expert tells to the Killer that, no matter how far they run, karma eventually catches up to everybody in this line of work (as it has caught up to her now) and one day it will probably catch up to him too, a realization that rattles him a little. In the final scene both his internal monologue and his dour, twitchy reaction while sitting next to the love of his life demonstrate the The Expert's words haunt him.
- Make It Look Like an Accident: How the Killer dispatches a few of his victims, most notably Dolores, at her request.
- Made of Iron: Downplayed. The Killers tanks the barrage of direct punches to the face The Brute inflicts on him pretty well, including an uppercut, and soon takes the offensive again. Notably because The Brute is a mountain of muscles compared to him.
- Molotov Cocktail: After dispatching of The Brute, The Killer burns down his house with a molotov.
- Multiple Identity IDs: Considering the Killer’s line of work, there are many, many scenes of him using fake IDs for everything, up to and including multiple license plates he keeps in a storage unit.
- Murder by Mistake: The Killer ends up botching a hit that leads to a dominatrix his intended target had hired getting killed instead of the target.
- Nail 'Em: The Killer destroys two laptops with a nail gun, and The Lawyer is killed by the Killer with three nail gun shots to the chest.
- Nameless Narrative: Downplayed. We do get the name of several characters, but the main players tend to be referred to by (and are credited as) their positions ("The Killer", "The Lawyer", "The Client", "The Expert", "The Brute", "The Target") so as to empathize the complete detachment of empathy in the narrative.
- Never My Fault: When the protagonist turns up to kill him, Hodges says it's the Killer's fault for going home instead of going on the run, claiming that it was the Client that wanted the Contract on the Hitman. The Client on the other hand says that Hodges was the one who came up with the idea.
- Never Trust a Trailer: The trailers hints that the Expert is some kind of smug mastermind behind the Killer's troubles, seemingly giving a Hannibal Lecture with a smirk and not to mention being played by well-known actress Tilda Swinton. In the film proper, she's ultimately just a hired gun doing her job and the Killer actually caught her off-guard at the restaurant where they meet, and her own death is a rather anticlimactic shot to the head.
- Nice to the Waiter: The Expert appears to have a very friendly rapport with Carl, the waiter of the place she's dining at.
- No Name Given: While the Killer does adopt many aliases due to his work, his real name is never revealed, and neither are the names of the other assassins he comes across.
- The Non Descript: The Killer has designed his look to both fit in and be as uninteresting as possible.
- "Not So Different" Remark: The Expert observes to the Killer how alike they are and how The Killer will likely one day share her fate.
- Not So Stoic: Just about the only time the Killer isn't incredibly stoic and cold is when he realizes that his safe house has been broken into and his girlfriend has been attacked, showing distress and panic over this. He's also outright gentle to her and her brother once he goes to the hospital.
- Nothing Personal: The Expert makes it clear to the Killer that she was ultimately just fulfilling a contract and much like the Killer would've boasted in the opening scene, didn't do it out of any personal motives or loyalties. In fact, she figures out that the Killer murdered Hodges and expresses zero sympathies or grief.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Magdala managed to injure the Brute, run through a glass window, and flee into the jungle to escape the Brute and Expert, foiling their plans and escaping with her life.
- Oh, Crap!: Many throughout the film.
- The Killer, after he fails to anticipate the dominatrix suddenly walking in the way of his target and he ends up sniping her by accident.
- The Killer has one again when he discovers his safehouse ransacked and his girlfriend missing.
- Dolores, when the Killer breaks into the Lawyer's office.
- The Expert, when the Killer corners her at a restaurant.
- The Client, when he turns around to discover the Killer standing in his apartment with a gun. He has another one a minute later when he realises exactly who the Killer is and why he's there.
- Pet the Dog: The one humanizing trait The Killer has is his care for his girlfriend and her brother. In a more tangential way, he also fulfills Dolores' request to be found dead rather than just "disappeared" like his targets. The Brute also gets a literal moment of this as he is briefly seen caring for his dog, Diva.
- Pop-Cultured Badass: The Killer listens to The Smiths constantly, and uses sitcom characters for his Themed Aliases
- Product Placement:
- The Killer notes in voiceover that McDonald's is a good place to grab "10 grams of protein" quickly and anonymously. He's seen eating the meat and cheese out of two McMuffins.
- We get close-ups on the logos of several car rental companies.
- The Killer sources his equipment from ACE Hardware and sneaks in to The Lawyer's office behind a FedEx delivery man.
- The Killer orders a FOB copier from Amazon.
- Profane Last Words: Despite being shot with the nail gun, The Lawyer still refuses to submit to The Killer's demand for the names of the hitmen and utters a defiant "Fuck you" with his dying breath.
- Properly Paranoid: Given his line of work, The Killer consistently covers his tracks and demonstrates acute situational awareness. It's one of his major advantages against his targets as all of them continue to go about their day-to-day routines after the opening hit.
- Punch-Clock Villain:
- The Killer describes himself in these terms, as simply a paid worker who does what he is contracted for and doesn't ask questions or think beyond what is asked of him. The fact that his work involves killing people is simply a detail.
- The Lawyer's secretary Dolores is well aware of and unbothered by her boss's criminal activities, but doesn't seem to be particularly evil.
- Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: In his opening narration, the Killer asserts, "I. Don't. Give. A. Fuck."
- The Quiet One: The Killer speaks very little, to the point his confrontations with his targets often become a monologue as his targets simply start talking and he responds with silent menace.
- Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: The thing that keeps our assassin protagonist sympathetic is the fact that a lot of what he's doing is avenging the rape of his girlfriend. The Expert asserts that she thought the Brute's actions were beyond the pale and tried to stop him, though it's not clear if she's lying to garner sympathy.
- Retired Monster: Having killed his handler and burned all of his bridges, the Killer decides to become one of these.
- Satellite Love Interest: Magdalena's relevance to the plot is fairly minimal aside from giving The Killer a reason to go in his Roaring Rampage of Revenge.
- Sean Connery Is About to Shoot You: The Killer points his gun at the viewer on the poster.
- Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: The Lawyer speaks in a very verbose, academic manner, using a lot of big words (befitting his title and occupation).
- Shoot the Dog: The Killer executes a completely innocent cab driver so as to not leave loose ends. In his monologue he notes he's not too happy about this, but he can't afford to take risks.
- Shout-Out:
- Most of the Killer's aliases are throwback sitcom characters, such as George Jefferson or Sam Malone.
- The opening scene where the Killer scopes out the hotel his target will be at calls to mind Rear Window.
- Straw Nihilist: The Killer follows a very nihilistic worldview, although he comes to realize over the course of the film how some of his actions contradict it.
- Strike Me Down with All of Your Hatred!: The Expert’s speech to the Killer is basically this.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
- Killer shoots Hodges/The Lawyer with a nail gun, as a method of torture to get information. Hodges just bleeds out much faster than Killer expected. Nail guns aren't exactly surgical.
- When Killer fights Brute, Brute has height, weight, reach, a home-field advantage, and possibly drugs in his system. It's not an even fight like Jason Bourne vs another Treadstone agent. Brute beats Killer like a bongo drum. Killer can barely stay alive, and even then only by improvising heavily.
- Killer hides in the kitchen, reaches into a drawer, and pulls out...a cheese grater. Not the usual knife.
- Unlike Bond, Killer's clever kill of Brute is out of extreme desperation and a guess, and doesn't come with a cold Bond One-Liner.
- At the end of the film, the Client sees Killer in his apartment. He's on the phone, so he says he's gotta go. And the other person refuses to let him. He's also some random rich guy, not a big evil mastermind.
- The Client says he had no idea what Hodges would do. Killer decides to believe the Client, says he wants to be left alone, and walks away. This is one of the rare times someone managed to persuade a vengeful killer in a film to do just that.
- Tagline: "Execution is everything."
- Tampering with Food and Drink: The Killer dispatches the Brute’s pitbull this way, by hiding Benadryl in little balls of ground beef.
- Tech Bro: The Client is heard talking to his personal trainer about bitcoin.
- Themed Aliases: The killer's fake IDs are all the names of sitcom characters.
- Uncomfortable Elevator Moment: Two that Book Ends the Killer's visit to Hodges. A FedEx worker that let the disguised Killer into the building stares awkwardly as he conspicuously puts on rubber gloves. When the Killer is leaving with Dolores and a recycling bin containing Hodges's body, the two get stuck with two other people in the elevator, one of whom accidentally accurately jokes that the bin contains a dead body which causes an awkward moment where Dolores hysterically cackles at the Dramatic Irony.
- Villain Protagonist: It's explicit from the film's title.
- Woman Of Wealth And Taste: The Expert dresses very sharply and eats in a fine-dining restaurant with some regularity (going by her friendship with the waiter Carl).
- Wounded Gazelle Gambit: The Expert slips on a snow-covered step and asks the Killer to help her up. He shoots her in the head immediately, and when he turns her body over it's revealed she had a knife in her hand.
