The Killer Is By Far David Fincher’s Simplest Movie

WARNING! This article contains minor spoilers for David Fincher’s The Killer!

The Killer is yet another thriller from genre master David Fincher, and the movie’s striking simplicity causes it to stand out within the director’s repertoire. The 2023 Netflix film, based on the French graphic novel series of the same name, follows a nihilistic assassin who is forced into going on the run after a routine hit goes wrong. The film’s dark tone, use of voiceover narration, and a calculating protagonist are all familiar Fincher elements, but the structure of The Killer constitutes a departure for the director.

On paper, there’s nothing particularly novel about Fincher’s latest movie, even despite The Killer‘s perplexing ending. Stories of international assassins with targets on their backs are common fare, with another such film even coming out earlier this year in the form of John Wick: Chapter 4. However, The Killer distinguishes itself by a character-driven story which seems to express less interest in the turns of the crime-thriller plot than in the minute changes within its tightly-wound protagonist. It’s worth unpacking why David Fincher has departed from his usual storytelling form, and whether the gamble pays off.

The Killer Is David Fincher’s Most Straightforward Movie To Date

The Killer is far from the director’s first thriller movie, but the other genre outings in David Fincher’s filmography are twisty and mysterious affairs. Films like Fight Club and Gone Girl operate on game-changing late-stage twists, while works like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Zodiac, and Se7en see protagonists on the tail of a shadowy killer. Even straightforward dramas like The Social Network and Mank operate within a complex network of shifting relationships. In this context, The Killer’s simple story of an unnamed assassin resolving a direct chain of cause-and-effect marks the film as a definite outlier.

How The Killer’s Straightforward Story Pays Off

Keeping The Killer’s story as bare-bones as possible is a bold move, one that opens the film up to potential criticisms of predictability. However, the simplicity of the story serves the film’s primary purpose: to help the viewer inhabit the headspace of The Killer’s protagonist. As The Killer’s narration continuously affirms, the character sees himself as insignificant. The character’s mantra of “fight only the battle you’re paid to fight” reflects his methodical focus, as well as his refusal to involve himself with anything outside his immediate interests.

It would have been a simple matter for The Killer to introduce a few more narrative bumps and revelations into its story, but doing so would have alienated the film from its character-driven core. The film is a deliberate and intimate examination of the consequences of believing, in the Killer’s words, that “nothing I do will put a dent in those metrics.” By keeping The Killer’s story as simple and airtight as possible, Fincher gives the viewer the opportunity to momentarily live within such a philosophy and the cynical, straightforward world it creates.