The Reviews For David Fincher's THE HITMAN Are Rolling in and Here's What Critics Are Saying
David Fincher and Michael Fassbender’s The Hitman recently premiered at the Venice Film Festival and the reviews have started to roll in. I’ve gone ahead and shared some of the things that critics have been writing about the movie, and for the most part, it seems like this is a good movie, but it misses the mark and isn’t as good as some of the other great films that Fincher has made over the course of his filmmaking career.
The story for the movie is an adaptation of Alexis Nolent’s graphic novel series, and the synopsis reads: “After a fateful near miss, an assassin battles his employers, and himself, on an international manhunt he insists isn’t personal.”
The description for the book reads: “A man solitary and cold, methodical and unencumbered by scruples or regrets, the killer waits in the shadows, watching for his next target. And yet the longer he waits, the more he thinks he's losing his mind, if not his cool. A brutal, bloody and stylish noir story of a professional assassin lost in a world without a moral compass, this is a case study of a man alone, armed to the teeth and slowly losing his mind.”
Read through the reviews below and feel free to share your thoughts:
THR: “At several junctions, the killer doesn’t do what many viewers might expect, and that unpredictability persists right to the end, but possibly not in an entirely satisfying way. Let’s just say that morally, The Killer is all over the place, which may alienate some viewers. Others may delight in both the protagonist and the film’s puckish, zero-fucks-given attitude, one that seems entirely, atheistically uninhibited by fear of a punitive deity or higher moral purpose.”
The Playlist: “David Fincher is rarely dull, and “The Killer” cannot take the director’s filmography in that direction, but it won’t push itself toward the top of his work, either. A competently realized crime thriller made by a technical team just as sharply attuned to details as the director at the ship’s helm, the Netflix production is entertaining but a little orthodox. The good news is: while this isn’t the brilliant Zodiac, it isn’t the paltry Mank, either.”
Irish Times: “The film offers confirmation that Fincher may be at his best when connected most closely to genre. Zodiac and Seven were essentially detective stories, and both were close to perfect. The ambition of Mank led ultimately to pretentious muddle. The Killer allows him to exercise his own perfectionist instincts in a raw entertainment that makes a virtue of its emotional distance. It may prove to be Fincher’s first self-help film. The protagonist advises himself to live by the initialism WWJWBD? That’s ‘What would John Wilkes Booth do?’”
Time: “Fincher seems to be having a great deal of fun with The Killer. Though he takes it seriously as a piece of action craftsmanship, there’s nothing overserious about it… Through it all, Fassbender makes a fine Nameless Killer Man with a Secret Conscience. In his finest sequence, he sits very still, listening closely to the person he loves best, absorbing the reality of just what this person endured to protect his Nameless Killer Man identity. The restrained anguish on his face tells us everything. Even just watching Fassbender walk is a pleasure: he has a lanky, feline stride—it’s hard to imagine he could pass unnoticed on the street, even disguised as a neat but boringly dressed German tourist, but no matter. Like Popeye, he is what he is. Only unlike Popeye, he's much too understated to brag about it.”
The Guardian: “It is all entertainingly absurd and yet the pure conviction and deadpan focus that Fassbender and Fincher bring to this ballet of anonymous professionalism makes it very enjoyable. And there are moments when the veneer of realism is disquieting: can it really be true that you can get through an electronic keyfob-protected door just by photographing it on your phone and then ordering a fob-copier from Amazon? Maybe it is… This is a thriller of pure surface and style and managed with terrific flair and Fassbender’s careworn, inscrutable face is just right for it.”
Vanity Fair: “Here and there, The Killer delivers. There’s a bracing, clever fight scene in a house in the Florida nighttime, a brawl of guns, fists, and household implements. It must have taken days to film, because of its many technical requirements and because of Fincher’s famous proclivity for retakes. The final product is stunning, a grimy pas de deux that Fincher ends with a blunt bit of punctuation. That is an interesting, and persuasive, aspect of the film: its frequent reminders that death is not innately operatic, does not usually leave room for poetic final words or pithy send-offs.”
Vulture: “The time for mothballing the philosophical hitman subgenre has long come and gone, but David Fincher’s The Killer might revive the debate all over again. Filled with expertly composed sequences undone by the protagonist’s relentless observations about the meaninglessness of existence, the movie feels like an attempt to highlight its own emptiness… All of Fincher’s pictures are ultimately about questioning their heroes’ conceptions of the world, and The Killer is no different. It’s ultimately a movie about its own pointlessness.”
Little White Lies: “There’s the dry sense of humour we’ve come to expect too, which Fassbender delivers gamely. For such a pro, this hitman is having a rather extraordinary run of bad luck, and it’s entertaining to watch him repeatedly attempt to pull himself out of a new mess, all the while repeating that he is a professional, detached from his work before all else. Perhaps there isn’t quite as much to chew on as we got with Zodiac or The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, but as a character study, it’s fascinating that a man who talks so much can say so little, and Fassbender’s cold, indifferent gaze is well-suited for a man who appears more like a shark in a bucket hat… It’s not exactly an ambitious plotline for someone like Fincher, but it’s certainly an engaging one, and the cryptic, constantly evasive protagonist is a puzzle that lingers after the credits roll. After all, how can someone so stepped in blood ever truly get away clean?”
The Film Verdict: “Fincher’s The Killer comes to the screen with the filmmaker’s trademark style and craft, but even as he reunites with his Seven screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker (adapting a French graphic novel), there’s nothing about this hit man (seemingly emotionless but fragile on the inside) that’s particularly different from thousands of other big-screen hit men (who are seemingly emotionless but fragile on the inside)… For all the inherent familiarity of the hit-man genre, Fincher and Walker have nonetheless crafted an absorbing tale; what it has to offer that’s any different from countless similar tales lies in the minutiae rather than the mayhem.”
The Killer has been in the works for almost three years and Fincher re-teamed with Se7en screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker to write the script. The movie also stars Tilda Swinton, Arliss Howard, Charles Parnell and more.
Netflix will release the film later this year on November 10, 2023.