Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before

Stop me if you think you've heard this one before but when did you last say goodbye to The Smiths? Was it when Morrissey ousted himself as the face of British far right party UKIP and the true heir to Nigel Farage? Spouting all that shit about tighter borders and keeping the foreigners out. Going from serious lyricist to serious racist.

As bad as these events were to me these are the least of his crimes. Above that, he needs to stand trial for being a miserable bastard in need of lightening up. The phrase, "touch grass", is one that can be applied to Morrissey's despicable antics. Puts a serious downer on Johnny Marr's otherwise generally pleasant jangly guitar work. And I know what you're going to say right, it's all about the contrast of the two? No. How can I back this take when I find Morrissey's contributions to the songs utterly insufferable? One half is good and the others shite. That's the truth. Why is it that The Smiths critics label them as a "student band", when in actuality Morrissey's "poetry" could probably make a sixth former cringe?

If you get the urge to hit play on David Fincher's latest offering, The Killer, currently streaming on Netflix, be careful, be careful. I come bearing great warning like Takashi Miike in Hostel. You may get more than you bargained for. You may come out wanting to give The Smiths another shot. Ladies and gentlemen, a sickness is spreading Do not underestimate the power of ironic championing. This is the key to conversion. It starts off as this grand joke and next things it's tolerable. I'm glad more people don't know this is man's greatest weakness. For who doesn't appreciate a good joke? Don't fall for it. Don't even let it in. Keep you damn doors shut. Throw up a no canvassing sign if you have to. Not in this neighbourhood! We shall not be overrun. Mr Fincher almost led your least favourite film critic astray with his devious methods and Smiths records but I am here stronger than ever to ward off those evil spirits that seek to take our bodies over like it's The Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Now that warning is out the way, we can begin this fucking review.

Ok, so the opening chapter which takes up a good 20 minutes of the run time could work as a superb short film in itself. Perfectly depicting the boredom of one man's routine as he lines up his kill shot. Yoga exercises, naps and coffees are how he fills his time. To relax he listens to his favourite band The Smiths just so if you didn't get the message this guys a total fucking loser, you've got it now. Excellent use of music that really parodies the whole fan base. Smiths fans, don't take it personally, Fincher's even taking shots at himself. Here we get the man at his most personal turning to auto criticism. He compares himself to the role of an assassin, planning out technical compositions and set pieces like actual murders. A consequence of this obsession with diving in to the imagination. The tagline is literally, "execution is everything", it couldn't be any more on the nose.

This comparison between murder and auteur is hardly new ground. Hitchcock had this all figured out way before anyone else. All his greatest students today like Fincher, Park Chan Wook, and Steven Soderbergh are merely continuing his way of life. Personally, I don't fully relate to this image. For me, as I discovered in last month's issue, I'm more of a TV cop like those depicted in 80s hit show Miami Vice. I have not been as others were-I have not seen as others saw. It's look but don't touch. Observing this life from afar but never being part of it. Never experiencing it. Dabbling now and then but never committing. Nothing but undercover stings and illusions. Brief but passionate encounters. left with this overwhelming sense of longing. Living amongst unresolved cases gathering in dust. Every time an issue is dealt with, another one pops up like Whack-A-Mole. Wanting to retire from the life and throw that badge so hard in to the sea but holding on to centuries of tradition because if I don’t no-one will.

Fincher wants us to know he's seen Le Samourai (a hitman movie about a loner carrying the samurai spirit in the modern day) and that he can play this strictly anti narrative and away from all the cliches. In all honesty, I don't even know if I care that much for Le Samourai. I know it's meant to be quiet and reserved but it didn't instantly stand out to me like Melville's other films such as Le Circle Rouge, Le Deuxieme Souffle and Le Doulos.

Perhaps it could reward with revisits but currently it's more like a template movie or shorthand expression, which respectably came first but was far surpassed by those who emulate the formula. It's the same for Shane and the far better The Guest and Pale Rider but in this case Le Samourai was improved by the likes of Thief, Drive, Taxi Driver and Ghost Dog. Never understood too well the appeal of Le Samourai. To understand Melville is to realise he's deeply flawed as a filmmaker but it's his passion for pulp that overcomes it. So why do we champion his most serious arthouse movie so highly?

Luckily, in this opening section, Fincher offers some of his own ideas that are highly unique and weird. The Killer reunites him with Seven writer Andrew Kevin Walker but it's a collaboration that asks more questions than it answers. Why does it feel like it has more in common with the satire of Fight Club than the sin of Seven. Fight Club was the last time Fincher got this hilarious and I welcome the return of the humour.

After the recent Mank, a weak but beautiful bashing of auteur theory from an auteur, it will have you wondering who's the author of his own films? Fincher is primarily known as a director with his critics attacking him because he can't write. Firstly, he writes with the camera, duh!, but I half wonder if he does contribute to this side because some of the narration has the same flavour as Fight Club. Part of the decision making process for this hitman is based on predictable consumer habits, quoting facts about brands such as Starbucks as readily as Fight Club.

It was intriguing to watch my father, a real no nonsense man with an affinity for action movies, throughout this opening sequence. He was strained to the edge of his tolerance in this section, stating that he was, "almost getting bored", but it didn't lose him. He would end up hating the rest of the movie but agreeing this early part was actually fresh in approach. What total mastery from Fincher to make such a powerful statement on the sense of boredom in the character's life whilst never losing his most impatient viewer. Takes some doing. My respect for him lies as always with his ability to mix arthouse and mainstream cinema. Zodiac was always arthouse disguised as blockbuster after all. He puts bums on seats, then once they're in, he strains viewers to the edge but has this peculiar power to retain them through dark and dirty water.

Finally, after numerous attempts from the assassin to set up his shot, we get to the big fat kill. The technique on display here should be studied by all. The Smiths How Soon Is Now increases and decreases in volume based on whether we are watching the assassin load up his weapon or aim down the sights. Essentially, if we are experiencing the scene from the killer's perspective the music is in our ears too on full blast and when we watch him preparing, we hear the spill from the headphones. It's very clever storytelling, using sound as a POV shot.

When I heap praise on to The Killer, it is mainly in technique. Unfortunately, there is little in substance to take it to the next level. I see little in the way of Fincher's zeitgeist studies of digital that made The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Social Network so relevant. If anything it's the opposite of that with the use of the outdated iPod. Is Fincher warning us of the dangers of digital catalogues that can be erased and reshaped against personal ownership? Didn't Nicholas Winding Refn do all this better in Drive with the whole social alienation in the internet age withdrawing in to our iPod's thing?

After The Killer's disastrous attempt at wiping out his target, he goes on the run to avoid being the next victim of his employers. Before he can make it back home, the employers have put his girlfriend in a coma and guess what, it's serious! This truly is the greatest visual companion to The Smiths discography ever conceived. Two questions at this point and these will keep you hooked and weirded out for the rest of the movie. Firstly, do you really buy this fucking loser having a girlfriend? Secondly, if he's such a professional why did he botch that job so badly? These will keep you on your toes for the entire revenge mission travelling across the world as he goes after those that hired him.

Our killer hitman has several passports meaning several identities, making this the exact kind of material Michael Fassbender excels at. He's got some German in him, some Irish, he's got London acting schools written all over him and this isn't his first rodeo in Hollywood. We're dealing with a man who thrives off cultural confusion. Dude belongs in a Wong Kar Wai movie. In Inglorious Basterds, he was the British film critic with German blood who gives away his troops on a simple cultural error.

Our killer hitman has several passports meaning several identities, making this the exact kind of material Michael Fassbender excels at. He's got some German in him, some Irish, he's got London acting schools written all over him and this isn't his first rodeo in Hollywood. We're dealing with a man who thrives off cultural confusion. Dude belongs in a Wong Kar Wai movie. In Inglorious Basterds, he was the British film critic with German blood who gives away his troops on a simple cultural error.

In X-Men, he's a persecuted Jew and mutant trying to work out why he is hated so much, standing in for the abuse of gays and other minorities. Taking over from Ian McKellen could never have been easy but he's done a fantastic job. We're talking about an actor who can be in a movie as weak and dull as X-Men Apocalypse and still come off strong with the only stand out scene (the one where he cries in the woods).

In shame, he's hiding under the clothes of an ordinary businessman with a typical boring life but in reality he's a fucking PTSD ridden sleazeball with a dirty hard drive. A hero to us all at Funeralopolis. In both Prometheus and Steve Jobs he plays robotic figures wondering what it is to be human. So yes, let's just say he's really good at playing characters who are unsure them of themselves and are cloaking aspects of their personality to avoid being targeted and exposed by the majority.

Pay attention around the mid-point when The Killer gets to the sunshine state. The very place we were in the last issue of Funeralopolis. This is the location where he takes on The Brute, some big motherfucker with a dog and it gives us what is already being talked about as one of the most innovative, brutal and brilliant fight scenes from the last few years. Nearly every piece of household furniture is used and even sofas get tossed at each other. It's an insane fight because The Killer is so out of his weight class with The Brute so keeps trying to fall back on his training but he's struggling to get it out against the sheer force of his opponent. In a sense, Fincher is teasing us with the technical. Raw and polished go toe to toe.

Fincher shoots this in near complete darkness, allowing the sound to take over. Reznor and Ross's score mixes with sound design so that you can't tell which is which. It's been a while since I sat down and made a DJ set (I confess, I wasn't very good at them, my hands are too shaky for all the precise mixing) but this was the basic idea I always had with the use of the film samples, not using quotes necessarily but fight scenes as this collage of sound. Trying to use my lack of understanding of rhythm and time to my advantage to create overlapping layers and textures. Glad to say in the hands of a professional like Trent Reznor these aims have been fully realised.

Everything after this set piece is mostly disappointing. I can't tell if there's one chapter too many or one chapter too few. His meeting with Tilda Swinton is far more revealing than the closing one. In this scene it answers the question for me of why he missed the shot. I believe it was a deliberate act and the drinking of the whiskey is the big give away. We're dealing with a perfectionist observer who's sick of playing that role. He wants to leave finger prints, he wants to botch jobs, he wants to participate. It's Fincher's Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion.

What does the final meeting add to the movie? Is such a downer of an ending worth it? Why couldn't he have just fought 10 brutes for the big finish? Alright, no-ones saying it didn't have to be anti-climactic but if you go that way you have to say more than an entertaining set piece at least. Otherwise it's pointless, you have to earn it! Climb out your own arse and stop thinking you're too good for some good old action. If you go this alternative route, you have to get it right. I'm not saying the chosen ending doesn't say anything either, from what I gather maybe it's to do with how worthless the revenge mission was and the kind of people who really run things in the world. However, it had very little impact on me to justify the decisions made. All I will say is this, where was The Killer, now one of the many and not the few, when we needed him during the 2017 and 2019 British General Elections?

As disappointed as I am by the ending (and I am very disappointed) I couldn't hate this by any means. It's adequately weird and unique for the most part. Structurally the way it refuses to give itself a neater narrative that flows better and sticks to its chapters from the original graphic novel is far more innovative than any of the MCU offerings. Also, it's intriguing to see how accepted Fincher's work is by mainstream audiences. He has to be the most commercially successful perverted auteur currently working and it's impossible not to respect that and how he's achieved this.

My theory behind how he's done that is Gone Girl. Turning it in to this perverse horror/thriller date movie for all to enjoy. A fantastic career decision and potential masterpiece in that genre of mine I call dinner table. He took on the ultimate trashy girly best seller paperback and made an incredible piece of pop art out of it. Won an entire new audience from the experience. Far surpassing those once promising but now forgettable directors who did Fifty Shades of Grey, The Hunger Games and The Philosopher's Stone. The Killer's rockiness aside, one single fact still remains, David Fincher simply cannot scare the hoes. Respect. Respect. Respect.

Director: David Fincher

Screenplay: Andrew Kevin Walker

Cinematography: Erik Messerschmidt

Music: Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross

Production Company: Netflix, Plan B

Distribution: Netflix

Country: USA

Run Time: 118 mins

Budget: Unknown

Plot Synopsis: Well I wonder what Le Samourai would be like if the main character was a fan of The Smiths. After a botched job, this charming man, whose name is never revealed has to travel back to the old house, where he finds his girlfriend in a coma. He goes on a revenge mission and so for everyone in his path it's death at one's elbow. Over the journey, it begins to sink in, what difference does it make? Sorry, that joke isn't funny anymore... I started something I couldn't finish.

Bonus Points:

-The opening chapter setting up the kill shot, the use of music as a POV shot and Fight Club style satirical narration

-The staging and lighting of the fight scene with The Brute

-Ross and Reznor's score that beautifully blurs with the sound design. A throwback to Seven when Coil remixed Closer for the title credits

-Creating this loser character who may just stick in the public consciousness for years to come

-Still torn on whether this is a bonus point or a minus but the ironic use of The Smiths

Overall Score:

3.5/5