The Killer

The Killer has all the Fincherisms fans look for: a haunting and aloof soundtrack, a cold blue colour palette, and camera work that hijacks your eyes. And plenty of blood and murder. David Fincher broke into popular consciousness with the serial killer thriller Seven and achieved cult status with Fight Club, a film that rejects genre conventions. Partly for that latter work, he has become one of the few celebrated by vulgar auteur theorists, who see in his body of work a credo and, in his style and methods, objects of worship.

Yet, his often-macabre subject matter and the glamour his style gives his amoral characters encourages criticism. Fight club is failed as the ur-text of violent angst and rebellion, adoring the walls of dorms the world over. Gone Girl, since its premiere, has divided viewers whether it is feminist or anti-feminist. Encountering these debates, I am reminded of François Truffaut, icon of the French New Wave, arguing that there cannot be an anti-war movie. That no matter the intention, the camera glories as it creates narratives palatable for consumption. The rise and release of tension, the thrill of combat, the empathetic characters, all to accomplish what cinema does: keep our attention. Fincher doesn’t make anti-war films, but it is curious that despite the text of the film suggesting the contrary, they remain appropriated and lionised for what they might satirise.

The Killer stands apart however, as it appears in dialogue with this perception. It is small but I think it bears noting. Throughout the runtime, The Killer (the movie) vocalises the internal dialogue of its protagonist and the killer (said protagonist) listens to The Smiths. After my first watch, a thought crossed my mind that I couldn’t articulate. It took a friend giving a tepid review for things to click:

It has two of my least favourite lazy film tropes: Smiths and unnecessary narration. If Drive consisted of Ryan Gosling driving round listening to The Smiths to show how moody he is.

My reading of The Killer is that the protagonist is a weirdo, a loser. I could justify it via subtext or a close reading but these two things, narration and The Smiths, make it undeniable.

A common way to make people laugh is making the arrogant fall. In charting a gap between the expectation and consequence, we have the fundamentals of set-up and punchline. Throughout the film, pride coming before the fall is repeated again and again and again. I’d go so far as to call The Killer David Fincher’s funniest film in years.

Part of the allure of characters like Fight Club’s Tyler Durden is their mystique and their competence. We, mere mortals prone to accident and failure, see in him fulfilment. There is a power fantasy in watching people do their jobs well. Morality be damned. It is hard to maintain the fantasy when the mystique is pierced by droning narration and competence undercut by consistent miscalculation. Appreciating this dynamic made my second watch less tense and more enjoyable.

More could be said: the killer’s preference for old sitcom character for fake names, the entire Miami chapter but one can go so far before engaging in hagiography and invention. Despite being hailed an auteur, David Fincher is unique in not having a writer’s credit for his films. Perhaps attempts to draw overarching messages from a body of work speaks to the human brain’s preference for pattern recognition. But if David Fincher continues to be criticised for an excess of empathy for the wrong people, The Killer might function as a mea culpa for Fight Club.