While David Fincher’s The Killer starring Michael Fassbender as the tile character was an entertaining watch for fans, it was a notable step down from his prior works. Although it possesses Fincher’s impeccable filmmaking chops, instead of being a complex narrative, full of twists and turns, which fans have come to expect from him, The Killer was more like a straight arrow.
And American Psycho author Bret Easton Ellis was one of the many, who shared a similar sentiment about the film, stressing that the film didn’t have anything to say despite being brilliantly directed.
The Killer Has Nothing to Offer Narrativelty Apart From Great Visuals per Bret Easton Ellis
While visually impeccable as David Fincher doesn’t back down from displaying his skills behind the lens, Bret Easton Ellis expressed that the narrative of The Killer didn’t have much to offer. Although he noted the scenes that worked, including the opening 10 minutes, Fassbender confronting the assassin, and the bare-knuckled brawl, Ellis claimed, as a whole, the film amounted to nothing.
In his podcast (via World of Reel), Eliis said:
“The best directed piece of nothing I’ve ever seen in my life. Like every Fincher movie, it looks phenomenal, and it is cut with a precision that takes your breath away until you’re just staring at it going “why the hell am I watching this?”
Bret Easton Ellis isn’t wrong when he expressed that narratively the film didn’t have much to offer, as David Fincher himself revealed that he wasn’t going for some high-brow thriller with The Killer.
David Fincher Wasn’t Aiming to Tell a Rich Narrative With The Killer
Speaking with Rolling Stone, David Fincher expressed that he wasn’t going for some convoluted noir drama but rather a stripped-down film, more in line with a Don Siegel movie. While he knew that fans would compare it with his past works, Fincher stressed that he and Seven writer Andrew Kevin Walker weren’t interested in making a maze, but a straight arrow that moves in one direction.
“The question we asked ourselves going in was: Could you hitch a ride with a sociopath who may not have a lot of emotional bandwidth, make it an intensely subjective experience, but still give somebody something that’s compelling to watch, rather than repulsing them? And I think it’s an effective invocation of what we were trying to do by that criteria. I’ve done movies that have twists and turns, and maybe people are waiting for that stuff. Andy and I didn’t want to make a maze. We wanted to make an arrow: something that flies straight in one direction and hits a target.
Addressing the fans, who could say that he was aiming lower with The Killer, Fincher stressed that making films of the caliber of his previous ones is very hard and not as easy as it seems.
The Killer is available to stream on Netflix.
