David Fincher’s The Killer opens up with the kind of scene one might expect from a movie about an international assassin. Our steely, unnamed lead (Michael Fassbender) waits for days in a gutted Paris building (later revealed to be a WeWork office), observing the five star hotel across the street through his sniper rifle’s scope. All the while, we hear his internal monologue, where he lays out how to be good at his job. He says he needs to be perfect. He needs the right amount of sleep, the right amount of protein – even his heart rate needs to be perfect. He talks about the importance of rejecting empathy, how the key is “not to give a fuck.” The world has always been the story of the few exploiting the many – he makes it clear that he believes himself to be one of the few. 

Finally, his target checks into the hotel’s penthouse. We’re about to watch a master work. He lines up his shot. He slows his breathing. He pulls the trigger. He… misses.

In another movie, this might be a crescendo, a big bombastic opening that leads to a chase scene and sets the rest of the story in motion. And while Fassbender does embark on a quick get away, and the story is about the consequences of him failing his assignment, this moment is far from pulse pounding. Instead, it’s a hilarious bit of anti-climax, Fassbender’s only reaction being a muttered, internal “fuck” as he realizes he has to dissamble his weapon and shuffle off to his hideaway in the Dominican Republic. This special brand of bathos, which feels less like having the rug pulled out from under you than realizing the rug was a built-in carpet all along, defines The Killer. That it’s delivered by Fincher, whose films have come to define a sort of nihilistic, Gen X outlook, lends these narrative let downs an extra gravity. Because for as much as The Killer is a story of revenge, it’s also the story of aging and realizing that you’re not special, and being oddly, serenely okay with it. 

I won’t spoil the plot, but truth be told, there isn’t much of one to spoil. Fassbender’s employer and client send a team of assassins to his Dominican safehouse, but only find his girlfriend, who they end up hospitalizing. Fassbender spends the rest of the movie tracking down the people responsible and exacting his revenge, giving us a front row seat to his alleged genius. His plots are sleek and schematic, and there is a certain satisfaction to watching this human leopard stalk his prey, counting out how long it takes a door to close, calculating how much cough medicine it takes to make a pitbull fall asleep, finding the perfect cover that allows him to slip into a restaurant. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ minimalist score, less a musical composition and more a collection of electronic scratches and textures, adds to the overall sense of brutal efficiency. 

But the secret is that Fassbender is only so efficient, only so good at his job. In reality, he’s just a good talker, able to smooth over his mistakes (mistiming how long it’ll take someone to drown in their own blood, getting snuck up on by a musclebound target) by refusing to truly acknowledge them, and convincing him and us that it’s all a part of the plan. It’s a very modern kind of delusion – the idea that one can be infallible, but also that it doesn’t really matter if you’re not, because one should be totally emotionally detached from their work in the first place. He reminds the viewer, repeatedly, to focus on “what’s in it for you” – but he never answers that question himself as he continually puts himself in harm’s way and torches his only source of income. In fact, one could argue that he’s displaying the ultimate form of empathy by exacting revenge on someone else’s behalf. 

In Fincher’s Fight Club, nihilism was put forth as a tool of liberation, something that could either destroy or help people cope with the empty consumer culture of the post-Cold War era. The outlook adopted by Edward Norton’s character (who is also nameless and provides an overarching narration) was purposefully ugly and brutal, meant to shock, alienate, and motivate a nation of corporate drones. In The Killer, this same philosophy is the foundation upon which Fassbender builds his very lucrative career. Even yoga, which might have been held up in 1999 as an example of cultural feminization, is a key part in this prolific killer’s routine. So too are Amazon, airlines, and rental car companies, the kind of plastic, impersonal services that the character’s of Fight Club might rail against for their emptiness. But in The Killer, the emptiness, the disposability is the point. Why would a hitman who tries to be as nameless and faceless as possible care if a corporation chooses to do the same?

Like the titular killer, Fincher has also made a career out of nihilism, becoming a respected director thanks to making films about sociopaths and outsiders. It’s something he’s very good at, but The Killer feels like an admission that making these off-putting stories are, at this point, just a job for him. At 61 years old, and with millions of dollars and a handful of Oscar nominations in the bank, he can’t pretend to be a provocateur anymore. If he did, he’d be like the billionaire in the Sub Pop T-shirt confronted by Fassbender at the end of the film – part of the establishment still insisting he’s doing something grassroots and radical. Just like the killer, he can’t deny his true nature, no matter how hard he tries. 
In his opening monologue, Fassbender quotes Popeye, declaring “I am what I am.” This is, of course, axiomatically true. But just because you are what you are, doesn’t mean you’re also what you think you are, or even what you used to be. Best to accept it and find a way to make yourself happy.