Vigilantes have always had a noir treatment in Hollywood ever since the industry has been influenced by reigns of French New Wave, which always normalized the said treatment of it. However, making a mood board based on the protagonist, whose character traits can be colorized only within dark shades, the execution becomes rather complicated, as the analysis demands a one-dimensional journey of cold-blooded mentality going shallow by terms of nihilism and loneliness.

The Killer is apparently the embarkment of the return of one of the most influential modern age auteurs, David Fincher, to his home turf of cold toned noir ambience with psychologically distorted characters in the center. Loosely influenced or inspired from the 1967 French neo-noir crime thriller Le Samourai and the French graphic novel of the same name (“The Killer”) being the adaptation, the plot revolves around the titular character going on a spree of finding clues across places when a contract goes wrong, and one of his co-workers gets shot. It’s a clever juxtaposition of mystery and vengeance layered together, but the execution falters seemingly when the conviction is questioned.

As the protagonist plays out on a quest of finding out what is corroding the system to infiltration and debauching the truth, rest of the characters gradually become his mere targets and not catalysts of changing the plot device to certain extents. Shot on locations around the world rather appear as reminiscence of Fincher’s remarkable style of filmmaking and chapters to protagonist’s progression in finding justice, which is tangent to his psychological order of determining what’s sane and what’s not. Talking about “the killer”, Michael Fassbender did it all with his body language, aura and non-verbal communication with the audience, emitting a sense of eeriness on what is the ultimatum of his resolution in killing people, all done so tactfully through the amazing voiceover alluring throughout the film, spiritually breaking the fourth wall.

Sound designing and background score are other pallbearers to this significant piece of noir. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, former band members of the grunge rock band Nine Inch Nails, and a longtime collaborator in Fincher’s works, has given their usual touch of techno-rock laced tunes, properly placing in between the scenes, be it a mellowed melody of despair and tension or finding peace within oneself in tunes of peace and tranquility.

This film also marks the comeback of Andrew Kevin Walker and David Fincher as writers from the acclaimed thriller “Se7en”, but this time gets overshadowed by the hopes of anticipation as the writing is starkly different from a whodunnit or even a psychological procedure inside a killer’s mind. As the story is all about the exposition of a killer’s life and his journey as a fragment of his profession, the screenplay delves in the beats of mundanity and predictability, however the 3rd act proves otherwise.

If looked upon the filmography of Fincher, this film is surely a victory in his arena of filmmaking but does not actually live up to the expectations of leveraging a bigger segment of audience with shock value, and as the story itself does not demand any of it, the screenplay ultimately suffers to some extent of innovation. It remains as one of those been-there-seen-these ventures of Fincher, but nothing unique to take notes of.