The Killer

There are few more overblown creations of fiction than the jet-setting hit man, taking lucrative contracts to murder the rich and powerful, then disappearing into the night. In David Fincher's The Killer, all the efforts by the titular unnamed assassin (Fassbender) to add a level of philosophical sheen through a constant internal monologue are soon revealed as little more than desperate attempts at self-justification for the world's most tedious job.

Fincher initially pulls off a bait-and-switch with opening credits that speak both to his kinetic Fight Club, and to every recent James Bond - which, superficially, Fassbender seems to be auditioning for. But this collapses into a half hour of exquisite, beautifully crafted tedium as the killer sits in a room and waits. This is Fincher as minimalist, distracting the audience with the building tension as the killer waits in an empty Paris office for his target to appear - which he finally does, accompanied by a leather-and-PVC-clad sex worker (Ganderton).

The scene is voyeuristic, but there's a twinge: The killer and the dominatrix are one and the same, both being hired to inflict pain for the pleasure of the wealthy. When the hit inevitably goes awry, and the Killer has to pay the consequences for his failure - edging his client without the promised explosion - the temptation is to ignore that twinge. But that would be a mistake.

Reunited with Se7en scriptwriter Andrew Kevin Walker for this adaptation of long-running French graphic novel series Le Tueur, Fincher isn't really that interested in the actual mechanics of assassination: Even though the Killer mentions rare and devious methods of murder, almost every death comes courtesy of that most unskilled and brutish of weapons, a gun. Rather fascinatingly, the Killer doesn't compare himself to other professionals, but to straight-ahead serial killers, totally deflating any mythologizing. Instead, it's really a character study of a working-class stiff, of the kind that Raymond Carver would enjoy, who would work in a factory that sounds like the score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, barely music but more rhythmical pops, fizzes, and growls.

Fincher and Fassbender build up the Killer in little details that seem prosaic: his tastes in food, in music, in TV shows, and his reliance on a mantra from which he strays more and more with every repetition. To re-enforce that structure, the narrative is split into chapters that all demark a target, and each is given a monologue. While all eyes will be on Tilda Swinton as a fellow assassin, it may well be that delivered by Kerry O'Malley as Dolores, a lawyer's PA, that is the most powerful: evocative, indeed, of Jennifer Carpenter's heartrending turn in Dragged Across Concrete as the innocent bank teller caught in the crossfire. Dolores is far from innocent, but she presages and amplifies Fincher and Walker's ultimate point about modern capitalism. The finale may infuriate some, but in this sharp-edged metaphor, it's the only one that makes sense.