‘The Killer’ and Vacuous Competence
The Killer is a well-made film that showcases competence on all levels—narrative, production, performance—but someone forgot to give it a reason to exist.
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Sometimes, as a writer, you get asked to define “good” writing1. How do you know if you’re a good writer? How do you know if someone else’s writing is good? I mean, I review books professionally and sometimes my reviews have to note what I consider to be bad writing, so there has to be a way to define it, right? Except, no, not really. While stuff like bad grammar or incoherent plotting makes it easy, sometimes a story just doesn’t have that je ne sais quoi that makes the writing good and it’s very difficult to explain why2.
Which brings us to The Killer, which arrived on Netflix at some point in the past and will probably be purged off it at some unknowable point in the future, vanishing from our collective consciousness. Until then, however, I can milk this for an essay3!
The Killer comes with some serious talent associated with it: Co-written by Andrew Kevin Walker (and Alexis Nolent and Luc Jacamon), directed by David Fincher, and starring Michael Fassbender (with Tilda Swinton showing up in a typically sterling supporting role). It is well made, sporting everything you expect from professional filmmakers and artists: It looks great, the story makes sense, the action scenes are well blocked and coherent, the production values are stellar4. Looked at objectively, it is an entertainment that contains all the basic ingredients of entertainment and all of these ingredients are of a very high quality5.
But is it good? Depends entirely on your definition of the term. Because The Killer is good in every way except in justifying its existence6.
This is An Ideal Opportunity to Use My Favorite Word ‘Cromulence’ but I Won’t because I Am a Professional
The Killer is about a professional assassin (Fassbender) who approaches his work with extreme discipline. Detail-oriented and so calm as to appear inhuman, he’s set up in an empty office in Paris, across the street from his target, waiting patiently for the right opportunity. When the time comes, however, by sheer chance he muffs the shot and has to flee. He returns to his remote estate in The Dominican Republic, where he finds his home has been invaded and his girlfriend brutalized. Because of the missed shot, the decision has been made to burn him7.
In response, our Killer begins hunting up the chain of command. He starts with the hapless taxi driver who brought the cleaners to his home, extracts information about them, then kills him. The Killer rinses and repeats—he moves up the chain, learning new information and killing everyone involved until he finally tracks down the wealthy client who hired the initial job—and who gave the green light to burn The Killer after the muffed assassination8.
The Killer is so competently made and acted you might be forgiven for thinking you’re enjoying the experience of watching it9. Fassbender’s assassin is so prepared for this eventuality, with storage lockers all over the world filled with guns, money, and fresh identities, that’s it’s kind of amazing he thought his home would be safe10. He approaches each murder with blank-faced professionalism, using slick social engineering, a cold-blooded attitude toward collateral damage, and a sharp eye for detail to ensure success.
Similarly, Fincher directs the film with the fluid competence you’d expect. It’s a film about competence made by one of our most competent directors, and in that sense, it sings. If you want a story about how satisfying it is to watch a skilled person do a job well, this is your jam11. If you want to care about characters or, indeed, why anything in a story happens at all, this is not your jam.
Competence is Boring
That’s because when you’re writing fiction, competence is boring12. The only truly interesting moment in the whole story of The Killer is when he fucks up that initial job. That’s compelling! Fincher and the writers do a good job of conveying Fassbender’s competence in the early moments, so when he muffs it it’s an exciting, unpredictable moment. From that point on, his grim uber-competence sucks all the tension from the story. At no point do you seriously worry that he might not prevail in the end, because of the uber-competence.
This sort of straight-line storytelling revels in the details. And it is kind of thrilling watching The Killer put together a plan to murder his next target, and kind of satisfying to watch him execute his plans with bland elan. But without any kind of stone in his shoe, no further complications that his magical competence can’t solve for, it gets kind of boring fast13. He’s obviously a cold-blooded killing machine who lays waste to everything and everyone who gets in his way, but how many times can you watch a competent tradesman do his job well before your mind starts to wander?
Of course, some might argue that I am merely salty about competence because I am personally so incompetent. My lack of competence is legend, so I can’t deny it, but I can tell you this: It makes my life much more interesting than an unbroken line of success and triumph would14. Or so I tell myself when I wake up in the middle of the night and think I can see my own demise creeping up on me like fate.
NEXT WEEK: A Murder at The End of The World shows its hand.
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Also, an inordinate number of people want to know how much money you really make at this gig. So far, none of them are prepared for the emotional breakdown this question sparks.
Of course I have considered the possibility that writers are all charlatans as a species. Of course I have.
You’re welcome.
Someone once told me that the U.S. car market was pretty static because every car hit a minimum standard of quality. You buy a Kia, and even that Kia sports robust safety and performance stats. The film and television industry is the same: Everything is acceptable and terrible all at once.
Much like my signature cocktail, which is one part bourbon, two parts rye, and three parts Jägermeister. I call it The Sadness.
Much like my dance moves. I’m not sure this footnote made sense.
Stories like this always make me wish my psyche profile had edged slightly more into the “The CIA wants to train you to be an inhuman killer” area of the Venn. The only entities that ever wanted to recruit me were cults and the Boy Scouts.
It’s a nice touch that the ultra-wealthy dude who pushed his button is almost completely disconnected from the process and plausibly claims that he was simply offered an option and took it without any sort of personal animosity, the same way you or I might accept a refund on a food delivery despite the fact that it could ruin some poor delivery person’s life.
I feel this way when drinking IPAs. It’s such a beer-like experience I can sometimes forget I hate IPAs.
Am I the only one who thinks about the sheer amount of effort involved in maintaining these sorts of setups and gets really, really sleepy?
Fassbender approaches murder in this film with the same affect as a plumber snaking a toilet.
And thank goodness, or I would be in a lot of trouble.
As I can tell you from many DIY home repair and renovation projects, incompetence makes things very exciting. Also: Expensive. Please buy my books.
Do you hear that soft sobbing in the backgr—oh, wait, it’s me, never mind.