The Killer is the Marie Kondo assassin movie
Around 70% of David Fincher’s The Killer, the fastidious director’s new hitman movie on Netflix, is watching Michael Fassbender throw things he doesn’t need anymore in the trash. Disposable gloves, backpacks, guns, disguises, corpses, phones, identities, surplus packaging, the bun of an Egg McMuffin. Fassbender’s assassin character — referred to simply as “the killer” in the credits — just keeps moving forward, like a shark, jettisoning anything and everything that’s no longer required, that might be evidence, that might slow him down or weigh down his pockets.
There’s one scene where he goes to a locker, collects something he needs for a hit that he ordered on Amazon, rips open the Amazon box, then immediately puts it in the bin, right there on the street. He doesn’t take it home and put it in the corner to wait for the recycling collection on Tuesday. He just tosses it out.
Initially, I was confounded by Fincher’s decision to show this extremely mundane procedural detail. But Fincher is nothing if not intentional, and the truth is, this shot has a strange power. It’s vicariously satisfying, thrilling even, to watch Fassbender efficiently dispose of the superfluous cardboard. Yes, I thought to myself in the dark theater, almost involuntarily. Imagine if you could live your life like that.
The Killer is at once a relatively disposable crime thriller and a knowing, deeply self-referential work about its director’s personal psychopathology. Adapted from a French graphic novel, it’s the story of a hitman who must work his way back up a chain of handlers, sources, professional rivals, and clients to stay alive and clean up the mess after a contract goes wrong. It plays almost like a parody of a David Fincher movie, full of
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