With its presence on the Netflix top-10 list, you might be considering adding The Killer to your Thanksgiving weekend watch list.

The streamer’s capsule summary is as follows: “After a fateful near miss, an assassin battles his employers — and himself — on an international hunt for retribution he insists isn’t personal.”

You may also be wondering why acclaimed director David Fincher and Netflix thought the world needed yet another hitman movie in which the hunter becomes the hunted and/or vice versa.

Good question.

That’s why this roughly two-hour film based on a French comic book would have been a hard pass, except for the fact that very creative, well-informed, and perceptive commentator who runs The Critical Drinker YouTube channel heaped praise on it to his nearly two million subscribers.

Unfortunately, this blog respectively disagrees with the Drinker on this one.

The Killer is a misfire, as it were.

[WARNING: Some Spoilers follow.]

If you skim the IMDB users reviews, you’ll note many of them include criticism of the long-winded and pretentious — and yes, somewhat interesting — narration by star Michael Fassbender in the title role as the previously can’t-miss hitman with the botched contract.

Fassbender is a fine actor, who apparently also has impressive Yoga skills, but he plays the almost deadpan Killer part as if he is still in the role of the android David from Prometheus.

But it’s not the length of the voiceover that’s the issue with The Killer.

It’s the content of same as contained the screenplay authored by Andrew Kevin Walker.

According to the review on the MovieNation website, “That narration, the lazy screenwriter’s favorite crutch, can’t distract from a film that’s simply an extensive collection of genre clichés.”

The unnamed hitman portrayed by Fassbender, among other things, drones on about the importance of refraining from being conspicuous.

At one point in the inner monologue, he admits that “avoiding being seen is impossible in the 21st century, so at least avoid being memorable.”

The character also ascribes to a philosophy that “forbids empathy.”

Throughout the whole movie, however, the Fassbender character, who prides himself on meticulousness and attention to detail and uses technology to track down his victims, actually calls attention to himself in many stupid ways

This includes scattering relatively easily retrieved evidence in public as if there is no such thing as security cameras or bystanders.

His activities in The Killer would get him pulled over and detained by even the most inexperienced beat cops, let alone the very observant officers, e.g., that appear every week on On Patrol Live.

Here are a few examples of and questions about the ridiculousness of the storyline, in which this savvy globe-trotting, under-the-radar executioner who seems to think that having multiple fake passports in the names of sitcom characters wouldn’t ultimately raise eyebrows:

  • The hitman spends days sitting in front of a wide open window facing a Paris hotel and spying on guests and workers as he waits for his target to arrive — as if they equally can’t see him. And instead maybe find a park bench somewhere else to chow down on McDonald’s (product placement?) rather than directly in front of said hotel where he stares at the doorman.
  • When the “fateful near miss” occurs, he fumbles away the obvious opportunity to take another shot. And rather then calmly exiting the location, he frantically flees on a motorbike in a way that attracts the attention of the gendarmes.
  • Later in the film, the hitman sits outside a residence in a van, and no neighbors notice a creepy guy who is parked there for hours.
  • And he is subsequently able to slowly walk way from the scene and toward his van after firebombing the house following a hand-to-hand combat encounter, and nobody calls 911?
  • The hitman walks around an airport with a obviously bruised face (after a beating that would what required a long hospital stay) which startles the employee at the ticket counter but that doesn’t prompt a further inquiry by TSA?
  • The hitman sits down for dinner with another victim in full view of the wait staff (and the restaurant likely has security cameras), in the course of which he and his tablemate don’t touch any the gourmet food on the table, and he then murders the victim outside the restaurant — and that is someone who wants to avoid being memorable?
  • All of his victims conveniently live alone, no family, friends, roommates, significant others, (although a pit bull makes an appearance in one instance) and in the above case, eat alone in an upscale dining establishment.
  • And it was business as usual at the taxicab company despite a holdup the night before?

As far as rejecting empathy, the entire revenge portion of the movie in which the hitman, i.e., The Killer, abandons another principle of only fighting the battle “you’re paid to fight,” stems instead from pro-bono emotionalism.

With that in mind, why did the two assassins just wait for the Fassbender’s character to show up at his Caribbean hideaway (on the questionable premise that he would return there) and instead stage a home invasion, brutalize his girlfriend, and then leave? What did that accomplish?

By the way, is it a good idea for this meticulous planner and anti-improviser that Fassbender’s character describes himself to impulsively run into the house (after leaving the headlights on in his vehicle) or later roll up to the hospital and leave his driver’s side door open so that the car could easily be stolen.

Unless Fincher intended this film to be a comedy masquerading as a thriller, the opus makes little sense throughout, and as such, it can’t be recommended.

According to the review on the MovieNation website, “That narration, the lazy screenwriter’s favorite crutch, can’t distract from a film that’s simply an extensive collection of genre cliches.”

By the way, throughout the film which ultimately gets boring, the sociopathic hitman keeps talking about staying with the plan, but what the heck is the plan?

The best part of The Killer is the opening credit sequence which sets the audience up, unfortunately, for a big letdown.

Moreover, it’s an ongoing ‘mystery’ how films like The Killer continue to get the green light when the script clearly is absurd.

The MovieNation review by Roger Moore concludes as follows:

As Fincher and Fassbender have earned the benefit of the doubt in terms of ambition, “The Killer” leaves one with a dilemma. Is this hit-man mocking satire, a Fincheresque essay on “the banality of evil,” seen via one really dull hitman? Or is it yet more proof of the gullibility of Netflix, signing a blank check to yet another famous filmmaker who indulged himself at their and our expense?

David Fincher also helmed the disappointing if not almost-watchable Netflix original Mank (2020).

The Killer

Note: This review of The Killer may be updated.