| Netflix | Release Date: October 27, 2023 | CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
44
Mixed:
14
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews
Oct 26, 2023
This is a perpetrator’s perspective on the business of violence, carried out with notions of professionalism while slowly shaking the sociopath’s sense of self. Michael Fassbender’s unnamed contract killer is as delusional as he is dead-aimed focused; it’s both chilling and humanizing.
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Oct 22, 2023
One wonders whether Fincher sees something of himself in The Killer — a man obsessed with process and precision, constantly tamping down the emotionality that he fears might violate the perfectionism he’s sought his whole career. In this way, it’s a perfect match of director to material, with a phalanx of great artists at the height of their powers aiding him in that mission.
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Sep 3, 2023
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.
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The TelegraphSep 3, 2023
Nov 14, 2023
The Killer is the kind of production that works both on the big screen and the smaller one (where most people will see it). It engages in a typically perverse Fincher fashion, exerting its pull as much by the development of the plot as by Fassbender’s magnetic presence, and proves to be one of 2023’s most disturbing, stylistic successes.
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Nov 10, 2023
IndieWireSep 3, 2023
The Killer is nothing if not committed to its own one-note bit, an existential nihilism that stays the same even as the protagonist, in a mostly silent Michael Fassbender performance, starts to change. It’s as unfeeling as any Fincher thriller, at once predictable in its simplicity but also strangely daring because of it.
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SlashfilmOct 26, 2023
Perhaps The Killer doesn't need to be anything more than what it is: a showcase for Fincher to do his thing, and do it well, just like the assassin at the center of the story. This is a lesser work from the filmmaker, but even his lesser entries are better than most of what we get these days. Sometimes it's okay to let an artist play the hits.
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Sep 3, 2023
In The Killer, David Fincher is hooked on his own obsession with technique, his mystique of filmmaking-as-virtuoso-procedure. It’s not that he’s anything less than great at it, but he may think there’s more shading, more revelation in how he has staged The Killer than there actually is.
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The PlaylistSep 3, 2023
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.
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The IndependentSep 4, 2023
The filmmaker always shows the same painstaking attention to detail as his homicidal hero does to the logistics of murdering his adversaries. Fassbender is well cast and gives a typically committed performance – one leavened by moments of very deadpan humour. However. The Killer also often drifts into the realm of self-conscious pastiche.
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