The Killer Review: Fincher’s Well-Crafted Thriller Has A Muted Emotional Tenor

The serial killer is to David Fincher what the gangster is to Martin Scorsese — not the sole preoccupation of their work, but a major one, and an avatar for their chief thematic interests. Each time they return to that milieu, it is with a piercing gaze, cutting through self-aggrandizement and cultural mythos to capture the smallness of the (typically) men who wear these labels to feel big. I believe The Killer, ostensibly about the more often romanticized hit man figure, is best read in this light. This is Fincher finally making the serial killer his protagonist and embarking on a feature-length process of disillusion, until any sense of grandeur is eroded. It’s a journey as much defined by tedium as tension, but to paraphrase the assassin, if you can’t handle a little boredom, this might not be the film for you.