The Killer is a 2023 American action thriller film[3] directed by David Fincher from a screenplay by Andrew Kevin Walker. It is based on the French graphic novel series The Killer written by Alexis “Matz” Nolent and illustrated by Luc Jacamon.[5] The film stars Michael Fassbender, with Arliss Howard, Charles Parnell, Kerry O’Malley, Sala Baker, Sophie Charlotte, and Tilda Swinton in supporting roles. Fassbender plays an assassin who embarks on an international revenge plot after an assassination attempt goes wrong.
Development on the graphic novel adaptation began in 2007 at Paramount Pictures and Plan B Entertainment, with Fincher signed on as director and Alessandro Camon as writer. In 2021, Fincher moved the project to Netflix, with Andrew Kevin Walker replacing Camon as writer.
A professional assassin known only as The Killer is watching a hotel room in Paris. He prepares to use a sniper rifle to kill a target who will check into the hotel at an unspecified time. While waiting for the target, he eats, does yoga, listens to music (only the Smiths), and talks on the phone with his handler, Edward “Eddie” Hodges, a lawyer and his former college law professor. The target arrives with a dominatrix and The Killer shoots but misses, accidentally hitting the dominatrix. He flees, evading the police and discarding his equipment. He then flies to the United States.
The Killer returns to his hideout in the Dominican Republic to find that it has been broken into and his girlfriend Magdala has been attacked. She is in the intensive care unit of a hospital, with her brother watching over her. He says that Magdala was interrogated and tortured by two assassins but injured one of them and escaped. The Killer tracks down Leo, the taxi driver who drove the assassins to The Killer’s house. Leo identifies one of the assassins, a strong man with a limp, nicknamed “The Brute”, and a woman who resembles a cotton swab, called “The Expert”. The Killer shoots Leo and attempts to track down the two assassins.
The Killer travels to Hodges’ office in New Orleans, Louisiana and enters the building disguised as a maintenance worker. After forcing Dolores, Hodges’ secretary, to restrain her boss and herself, the Killer destroys their electronic equipment. When Hodges attempts to chase the Killer away, the Killer shoots him in the chest with a nail gun to torture him into revealing the names of the assassins. However, Hodges does not reveal the information and dies more quickly than the Killer expected. Dolores offers to show the Killer the names of the assassins in her home’s paperwork, in exchange for the Killer giving her a non-suspicious death so her children can claim the life insurance payout. After receiving the names at her home, the Killer breaks his rule of not showing sympathy; he snaps her neck and pushes her down the stairs, making her death look like an accident, as she had requested. He then disposes of Hodges’ body.
