The Killer
This is a movie that follows a professional hitman, and it follows him very closely, being inside his brain. A character study, if you will. He is good at his job because he is super logical and careful, and you see the wild lengths he goes to do his job well. But also he is a sociopath, so you see how this kind of story would unfold for a guy who is unable to feel things, or at least who has trained himself not to feel things. It's all about how empathy is weakness, and fear is the mind killer or something like that.
But then things go wrong and the goons are sent after him, and so this is actually a Jason Bourne movie if Jason Bourne was super unlikeable. It's still the same cold, calculated, hyper-competent protagonist, but this character is supposed to have no redeeming qualities.
Except he also kinda does? I guess that's my issue with this movie. The character is set up in a super specific way, to feel nothing, to never react, to always keep logical, but then the main plot of the movie contradicts that. I get that it's a tough spot to be in, where you've developed a super compelling character, who by necessity is impossible to tell an interesting story through, and so they didn't have much of a choice besides to slap on a generic action movie plot with lots of fights and shoot-outs. It took the easy way out instead of making something wholly unique.
So I land somewhere in the middle. It's a cool concept with an amazing performance by Fassbender, but the movie isn't super coherent or consistent. They almost stumbled on something really good, but fell short in my opinion.
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