The Killer (film): One of my favorite underrated actors stars in another excellent film

I think that Michael Fassbender is one of the most underrated actors alive today. He has been in some really amazing films and one of them is Shame which I consider to be one of the best films ever made by anyone. He doesn't often get starring roles and this doesn't make a great deal of sense to me. I think he is a fantastic actor with skills that few other actors can match, yet he doesn't get many roles and this seems odd to me. Maybe he just doesn't have that appeal to get people into the seats of theaters and the fact that The Killer didn't even get a wide release might suggest that the producers of his films don't believe that he will pull in the crowds either. The fact that this film didn't even make half a million at the cinemas is odd to me, because it is a fantastic film although you could say that it is quite a typical plot-line.

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The story here is not unique: Fassbender plays the role of simply "the Killer" and we never get to know his real name. He has a wide variety of aliases, passports, ID's, and all the other things necessary to be whoever he wants to and untraceable. He is a world-class assassin and we get a rather lengthy introduction into his process and at first I didn't like it and turned the movie off but this was not the movie's fault. I had 6 beers that night before starting the movie and I was pretty tired and in bed, so we can't blame the film for this even though it does in fact start out a bit slow. However, this is done on purpose to show exactly how time-consuming doing a kill correctly actually can be. It shows the prep time, the waiting, the methodical process that cannot be violated if someone is to be successful in this art.

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I'm not going to tell you any more about the first chapter though because it is a pretty shocking part of the overall story and while it is very interesting, revealing it would give away a tremendous part of the storyline.

This film is divided into 6 distinct chapters and I like that they do the movie this way. In each one of them the story is basically its own sub-plot but they all come together for a complete story by the end. When films do this, and do it well, I tend to think it is excellent and in my mind they executed (pun intended) this method perfectly in The Killer.

As the movie goes on I found myself becoming increasingly envious of the life that he leads and the immense wealth that he has accumulated from being so good at it. I don't know if there really are people like this in the world but I would imagine that it is probably one of intense paranoia and what appears to be sometimes rather extensive preparation and noticing little things that most other people wouldn't. The level of access he has to certain things is impressive although I am a bit perplexed about how a person could possibly have a dozen passports and dozens of matching credit cards through fake identities. I guess there is a way but seeing as how it is sometimes difficult for me to use what is my genuinely real credit card, I have a hard time believing that this is possible. Oh well, it is a movie, we have to move past that.

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I can't really say much about what happens in this movie but just know that it is your run of the mill "revenge movie" but executed by what I consider to be one of the best actors out there now. Put some other big name in this role such as Jason Statham and it simply wouldn't work the way that it does in this movie. Fassbender is the perfect candidate for this role and I am delighted that he was the choice for it. I don't think I would have enjoyed it as much as I did if they put literally anyone else in the role.

Should I watch it?

The only reason I can come up for why someone shouldn't watch this would be if you are the kind of person that doesn't enjoy action films. There is a small percentage of the population that is like this but I think most people are down with some action. The pace isn't full on all the time but I actually found the rise and fall of the action to be something that improves the overall experience. The soundtrack is absolutely perfect as well and the trailer above embodies some of that as well. This is one of the best action films I have ever seen and I highly recommend that you see it.

_{the only legal way to watch this film is on Netflix}