The Conclave (2024)

The Mystery of Faith/The Sin of Certainty

or

"The Church Is What We Do Next"
 

The Pope is dead. Time to find a new one.

 

The Catholic church is steeped in ritual and arcana, seeing as how it's been around for 2000 years. Lord knows when all the niceties were developed (as He didn't come up with them), the breaking of the seal, the sealing of the Pope's quarters, the voting in secret among the council of cardinals in a locked, darkened room with no communion to the outside world. 

 

The smoke. 

 

It's a bit like the electoral college, as the Catholics in the world have no say, only the carefully chosen cardinals, get to choose who will be the next successor to Peter, the first Pope. 

 

But, he will be a man. That is the only certainty. Nuns need not apply. It's the way it's always been and, God only knows, it will be that way for a very long time. For God speaks only through the chosen few and only they have the power to change things...if God lets them know. Pity about Him not speaking to women, although a lot of them, Joan of Arc, being a burning example, would contradict that assumption.

Just ask Cardinal Thomas Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes) of The Conclave. He was close to the late Pope, close enough that he'd personally asked to resign his special position as dean of the cardinals. But, the Pope refused him to Lawrence's mystification. Lawrence was having a crisis of faith. As he explains to one of his fellow cardinals, Bellini (Stanley Tucci), what he's lost faith in was the Church, he's never lost faith in God. But, now the Pope is dead, and as dean of the cardinals it is Lawrence's function to convene the conclave of cardinals that will select the next Pope, with all the ritual and preparation and in-fighting and...politics. Lawrence is one of the leading contenders, but he doesn't want the job. Not like this. Not like he is. But, he will conduct the conclave. But, he has doubts.

Apparently, so did the late Pope, enough to demand that Lawrence stay at his post. As hard as it is to separate Church and State, it is damn near impossible to keep politics out of the Church and the vacuum of power threatens to suck in the best and the worst of the cardinals, each to their own nature. The world changes fast and the Church (if it does) is slow to catch up. There are those that would see an Italian pope and only an Italian pope and that the Mass and all business be conducted in Latin—most prominent of them would be Cardinal Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto), who is intolerant of change and resentful of changes that have occurred—have a Friday dinner with him and he'll have the fish.

Then, there are Lawrence and Bellini, progressives, who want to see a more inclusive church, changes in doctrine, less fire and brimstone. And there are the moderates, like Cardinal Tremblay (John Lithgow) and Cardinal Adeyemi (Lucian Msamati), who are highly regarded and well-connected and have a chance at being elected by the conference of cardinals. As they gather from around the world to be locked away in seclusion there is a lot of last-minute maneuvering and...a lot of smoking. It doesn't look to be a slam-dunk for any candidate.

But, Lawrence—who is also a considered candidate and who (of course) doesn't want the job—has begun to hear things. Things like the late Pope having a last-minute conference with Tremblay where ("they" say) he was asked to resign...but refused. An incident in the lunch-room involving Adeyemi and one of the nun-servers raises questions and temperatures. Lawrence pulls the old "we're priests, you're just nuns" argument to obtain information out of Sister Agnes (Isabella Rossellini) about the parties involved. But, he's more than willing to break tradition (and a couple wax seals) to get to the bottom of things.

Several commandments are revealed broken in The Conclave by the cardinal's detective work (good thing Father Brown wasn't there!) including bribery, subterfuge and a few others that might spoil the resolution and there are a lot of Deadly Sins going on (Bellini challenges Lawrence's supposed lack of ambition by asking him if he's thought of what his Pope-name would be...and, of course, he has), but the only one you won't find anywhere is "sloth."

German director Edward Berger (he made the excellent 2022 version of All Quiet on the Western Front) makes sure that the film has the proper solemnity but not so much that you fall asleep in church. The movie is never less than beautifully shot (by cinematographer Stéphane Fontaine)—Rome never looked so good (probably because so much of it's in Cinecittà)—and Berger is less dependent on the single-point perspective than normal although he will go to it to make a grand impact (and, really, how could he help it as most churches are designed around a one point perspective.

But, he also has a cast of character actors who are adept at stealing scenes usually in conflict with Fiennes, who has the God-given power to command your attention. Talk all you want about the work that went into recreating the Sistine Chapel for this film, but you have a marvelous opportunity to see a master class in performing sotto voce that can propel you out of your seat when Fiennes turns it into a bark. We're talking measured performances of actors playing characters hiding something and being pious about it. That's some nuanced acting there.

There's a lot of Oscar buzz around this movie, not undeservedly, but, it's mere murmurs now and we'll see if we still hear it by year's end. Certainly there'll be a lot of nominations. But, voting for the Oscar has a lot of the same background as chicanery voting for the Pope. We'll just see what happens when the smoke clears.

Joker: Folie à Deux

Doubling Down on a Pair of Jokers

or

The Roar of the Greasepaint (The Smell of the Crowd)
 

Folie à deux (French for 'madness of two'), also called shared psychosis or shared delusional disorder (SDD), is a psychiatric syndrome in which symptoms of a delusional belief are "transmitted" from one individual to another.

 

Re-reading my review of Joker—a film which earned a billion dollars in revenues and secured Joaquin Phoenix a Best Actor Oscar—I soft-pedaled my major reservation to the film, which was "if you're going to make a movie about a comics fan-favorite with a proven track record, maybe you should stick a little closer to the source?" The Joker, of course, was a villain—some would say THE villain of The Batman series—but the Joker without Batman is a bad guy with no opposition, a villain without redemption, and the stomping grounds of Gotham City merely a 'burg without hope...not someplace you want to go to have a good time. Director Todd Phillips went a different route through town, basing his version of "Joker" on two Martin Scorsese movies (Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy), but without that director's Catholic horror at the consequences of dwelling incessantly in an isolated mind with delusions of grandeur. Centering your film around such a character was always going to be morally questionable and never on the side of the angels.

The movie, however, was a hit. And in the movie business, when you have a hit, you make a sequel, because, in Hollywood, lightning always strikes twice in the same place, despite overwhelming evidence of diminishing returns, both artistically and financially.

 

So, here, we have that sequel, Joker: Folie à Deux, which was trumpeted as a continuation of Phillips' Joker story, but adding another character from the Batman series (initially "The Animated Series" actually), the Joker's hench-woman and moll, Harley Quinn—probably the most toxic relationship in any comics setting, even more than the brick-throwing antics in Krazy Kat. But, Phillips puts the same anti-clockwise spin on the story, leaving behind the comics and the arcana. And starting fresh with old jokes.

The new film starts with a cartoon made by the animation team directed by Sylvain Chomet who made The Triplettes of Belleville as well as the unrealized Jacques Tati project, The Illusionist. It's a deflection—a lot of the movie is (as was the last one)—for when the blood-red curtains ending the cartoon open, we cut to the reality: Arthur Fleck (Phoenix) incarcerated in a wing of Gotham City's Arkham Asylum (done in full Titticut Follies grimness). Every morning, the wards are opened up by the guards (including Brendan Gleeson's Jackie Sullivan) so that the inmates can empty their bed-pans and get their requisitioned meds. Sullivan always begins the day by asking Fleck "Got a joke for me, Arthur?" but lately the erstwhile "Joker" has been silent.

You see, he's awaiting trial for the murder of talk-show host Murray Franklin, as well as three toughs who assaulted him on a subway, and for an unnamed orderly at Arkham (all presented in the first film). His attorney (Catherine Keener) has been diligently working on his case trying to keep Arthur appearing normal so she can plead insanity at his upcoming trial to keep him from being executed. But, Arthur's reputation precedes him like a shadow—he did, after all execute Franklin on live-television. And, there are those "Joker" fans in Gotham, fanning his flames—there was even a made-for-TV movie about him that gets mentioned a lot. Things are not looking good for Arthur.

That is until his relatively good, albeit drugged, behavior allows him to participate in a music-therapy program in another wing, where he meets Lee Quinzel (Lady Gaga), and their mutual attraction begins to perk him up. Just like in the cartoon at the beginning, Arthur starts to break into song—but just in his imagination—old standards like "If They Could See Me Now," "For Once in My Life," "They Long to Be (Close to You)," "To Love Somebody,""Bewitched," "That's Entertainment!" and even "The Joker" from the Newley-Bricusse musical "The Roar of the Greasepaint! The Smell of the Crowd!" (which is a little too on-the-painted-nose) others start popping up whether it's just Arthur standing in front of a TV, or director Phillips goes off on some extravaganza set-piece (he's already made a shot call-back to The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, so it isn't unsuspected.

The trouble, though, is pacing. Just as Joker would stop-cold whenever Phoenix had a chance to improvise for the camera, Folie a Deux stutters to a stop—or at least a slow crawl—whenever the music starts. The songs aren't delivered as bouncy show-stoppers, but slow internal monologues with hesitant half-hearted voices (even the Gaga), so there's a slight cringe factor whenever someone starts to break into song, off-set somewhat by the anticipation of what musical style Phillips will borrow (will it be La La Land? M-G-M? The Sonny and Cher Show?), and long after the joke wears a little thin, it will still be crooning along until somebody snaps out of the reverie. It tries the patience.

It will try the patience of comic book fans, as well. Just as Arthur is not "The Joker" of the comics (no, really), Lee is not Harley Quinn in any sort of incarnation, animated, live action, or four-color. The original Harley was a psychologist at Arkham Asylum, who fell under the Joker's spell during evaluations of him at the facility, and then things get a little muddled as she acquired above-human abilities and an acrobat's agility. For the longest time, she was attached to Joker's hip as a moll, henchwoman, girlfriend, soul-mate, but, eventually, that relationship became so damned toxic—they're both crazy, after all, and homicidal—that to keep Harley Quinn a viable character, keeping them apart seemed the only answer with DC Comics acting as the aggrieved parents pushing the couple apart. But, Lee in  Folie à Deux is somebody else. She's initially a fellow inmate, a firebug committed by her parents who happens to meet Arthur by accident and the sparks (heh) fly. But, even that's not right. In this, Lee is a hanger-on, like those souls who marry incarcerated prisoners for whatever reason—"in love with being in love" (but without conjugal obligation) reflected glory, "I can save them" fantasies, or just plain "bad wiring"—and she had herself committed with the intention of sharing his glory.

But, when Arthur is on trial, eventually serving as his own defense attorney (with Harvey Dent—played by Harry Lawtey serving as prosecutor), he's confronted by the reality of what he's done, and seems less the mythic failure of chaos and societal retribution, but, a flawed, screwed-up schlub, Lee dumps him, taking away the last shred of fantasy he has—even his fan-base becomes threatening to him, leaving him a good deal less better off than he was before.

Fantasy versus reality comes to a hard truth: that maybe the love of his life isn't what he thought it was (but, then, they did this in the first movie) and that the thronging crowds supporting him are merely a slathering mob there for their own self-aggrandizement (I've seen that one, too; I watch politics). Fleck has to confront the horrors of both of those realities and when they hit, there's no song or fantasy sequence to play him out.

Now, this all plays right into my film-philosophical wheel-house where love is a form of insanity and musicals are a false form that breaks the agreed-upon screen/reality wall to have characters break into unchallenged song to express internal emotions they're incapable of with mere dialog. What Phillips has done seems perfectly natural to me in the crazy-illusion film-world, especially when combined with lunatic characters like Joker and Lee. Sure, the film has flaws—I've brought up the pacing issue—but all the actors are great in it, including Phoenix and Gaga, and the concept is just enough "out-there" to maintain the themes of the first film and build on them.

And what is the theme? I'd contend that it's a cock-eyed continuation of a couple expressed in Christopher Nolan's Batman series—"You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain" (even if you actually start out as a villain but are a hero in your own mind) and where the symbol is the powerful thing, not the man inhabiting it. In the movie, Arthur Fleck isn't competent to carry on the mantle of "Joker" and he gets rejected.

Remember what I said about basing a movie on a villain unopposed, without redemption? There's no future in it. But "The Joker" is a popular character, some poor souls might say he's more popular than "The Batman" himself. So, you make a movie about him. But, "The Joker" that everybody (meaning the fan-base) likes is the agent of chaos, the contrarian, the one who's in control of things and leads the heroes on a merry—if deadly—chase. The Joker That brings in the box-office bucks is the one ahead of the game. That's the Joker that people respond to. That's The Joker that has fans.

This "movie-Joker" is not him; he's never in control. And I think that was always Phillips' intention with Arthur Fleck. A guy who fell between the cracks and by acting out inspired mob-hysteria among the anti-social. Joker: Folie à Deux—the name means so much more when you consider all this—is the the natural continuation of this premise and the logical conclusion. The movie does exactly what it wanted to do, bless its twisted little heart.

The result, of course, is the last riotous laugh: the movie is being rejected by its fan-base. Not because it's musical, but because this Joker is a loser. In many fan-circles, you can do bad things—horrible things—but, you can't be "a loser". That does nothing for fans wanting to identify with an agent of chaos, or see The Joker as the guy in charge manipulating the "order" of things. So, the sheep are rioting...or doing what sheep do when they protest, they find another patch of grass to gnaw away on and ignore what's not working for them anymore. As in the Who song "Let's forget you/better still" and find some other power symbol for their needful mimicking narcissism.

 

And that's the truth of it. Power fantasies are merely that. Fantasies. And when the fantasy fades away, well, as Arthur says "You get what you f-ing deserve."

 

"You can say that again, pal!"

Trap (2024)

In Concert With a Serial Killer

or

"Take Your Daughter To Work" Movie
 

M. Night Shymalan hits the nail on the proverbial head calling his new thriller Trap and then doubles, triples and quadruples down on it in an obsessive way that he's never done before, with layers and layers of traps for the the film's central figure, who has to find ways out of them, even though to do so, will only keep him trapped in an endless cycle that he is unwilling to free himself of—he is compelled to repeat the cycle over and over again.

 

Well, to paraphrase the old saying, when one trap closes, another one opens.

 

Cooper (Josh Hartnett, in a tour de force performance that is entertainingly mercurial) is a good dad taking time off work as a fire-fighter to treat his daughter Riley (Ariel Donoghue) to the hottest ticket in town for her good grades. Riley, you see, is obsessed with pop-phenom' Lady Raven (Saleka Shyamalan, the director's daughter) and Dad's managed to get tickets right on the floor. Riley couldn't be more excited.

Which is why she doesn't notice that Dad's a little distracted. Concerts always have tight security, but the police presence for the Raven concert seems to be amped up a little bit and Dad can't help noticing. So, once they've got their seats secured, Dad starts to disappear for awhile—with a protective "Don't you move. Stay here."—to do some reconnaissance. Seems that all the cops and security are there because it's suspected that the local serial killer "The Butcher" is going to be attending the concert—yes, it seems strange that the authorities would be so certain of that and a good length of the movie will be spent in "plausibility mode" doubting it, but writer-director Shyamalan does manage to plug that plot-hole and rather neatly. The concert-goers—except for one individual—are entirely oblivious of this circumstance, thinking that it's just the usual security detail.

That one individual is "The Butcher" and it just so happens that Cooper is the guy they're looking for. He spends his absences from the concert, checking the exits, making distractions—there plenty in a busy concert-hall, gathering information, and making in-roads with the security staff. By the end of the concert, by grace and guile, he will have secured a staff badge—gaining him entry to employee spaces, the password to identify security staff and has even managed to lift a police radio, so he can listen in to alerts. Seems like he has the advantage.

But, he doesn't. He's still stuck at a concert with his daughter (who doesn't know his secret) in a loud, thronging fortress, that is person-by-person, questioning the adults in the hall looking for their quarry. "Trap", indeed.

He's trapped because he's in a maze of a concert-hall, surrounded by armed security, but also because he's trapped by the presence of his daughter in the situation, and by his own need to keep the roles of good parent/serial killer separated. It takes an awful lot of artful dodging, lying, subterfuge, and slight of hand to keep the predicament he's in from closing in on him. At the same time, he keeps checking his phone—he has a potential victim locked up in an abandoned fire-trap and the remote ability to kill the guy with carbon monoxide. Then, things start to escalate when the FBI shows up.

The thing of it is, we're trapped, too. As a helpless audience-member*, we're stuck at looking at the movie from "The Butcher's" perspective—the same way we're left with Norman Bates after the murder of Marion Crane in Hitchcock's Psycho, the only difference being that we find out quickly that Cooper is "The Butcher" and we still follow with interest, albeit conflicted. We're stuck in his situation, and it could be extraordinarily claustrophobic were there not another show going on the full time—Lady Raven's concert.

Say what you will about the obvious nepotism—I certainly did in the title—but, at least Saleka Shyamalan is talented and obviously heavily influenced by Beyoncé, and it does provide a distraction from the constant tension of Cooper's obsessive paranoia. Besides, what Dad wouldn't give their daughter their own Eras tour?

If the movie has a failing, it's that it can't sustain the suspense, that it has to open up in order to fully resolve the situation...and then doesn't resolve it in ways that really do strain credulity. If there was any film of Shyamalan's** that could have wrapped things up neatly and cleanly with a certain amount of resonance, it's this one, but for some reason the film-maker could not help not ending the movie satisfactorily, which is strange as Shyamalan made his career by finishing his movies with a gut-punch.

 

So, what you get is a strange amalgam of concert film and suspense thriller with an extraordinary performance by its lead. And one of the better Shyamalan films in years. 

* "Helpless?" You bought a ticket, friend-o!

 

** I'll bet you're wondering if Shyamalan does his customary extended cameo. I was wondering myself when the movie had gone a considerable length without showing up. "Where's Night?" I found myself thinking...only to discover that he showed up in the very next shot.

Bubble

Written at the time of the film's release. 

And it's a bit dated. We all know what happened with the pandemic, and it gave an extra push-start to streaming services, with indications that it might have pushed the market to far. Services are consolidating. But director Steve Soderbergh was pushing the red envelope way before anybody, looking for a way to unlock the stranglehold the main studios had with distribution. The situation is still in flux...and theaters are back in business again. We'll see what the market bears.

Bubble (Steven Soderbergh, 2005) Billed as "Another Steven Soderbergh Experience," this low-budget, shot on video, story of a love-triangle at a doll-making factory is more experimental than experiencial.

The business-end of the film is that it was released simultaneously in theaters, on Pay-per-View, and DVD...just to see what would happen. With the theater-life of films to DVD approaching four months and closing, business analysts were interested in what this new paradigm would look like. The costs on Bubble being reasonable, they had nothing to lose, allowing them the freedom to experiment. Bubble, however, was probably not the best film to do it with, as the entire film is unconventional, with no stars, no pyrotechnics, and the innovations behind the scenes for the most part.

Soderbergh had executive-produced (with George Clooney, his "Section Eight Productions" partner) a cable series called "K Street", centered around Washington D.C. politics that mixed real actors with politicians, and Soderbergh became fascinated with the split-dynamics in the performances of thespians and politico's—sometimes preferring the latter. Bubble was then designed to accommodate non-professionals before the camera: there was no formal script, taking memorization out of the equation, and the film was designed as a series of "Tableuax," freeing performers and crew from having to "hit their mark" (and it should be noted —here in 2024—that this was the same approach used by Jonathan Glazer in the recent The Zone of Interest—although Glazer went so far as to hide the cameras and merely "allowed" his actors to interact in their field of view, almost as if they were security cameras).

Filmed locally in the twin-cities of Belpre, Ohio and Parkersburg, West Virginia with locals culled from an interview process, Soderbergh made great picks for the principles with contrasting personalities and body-types and histories, informing their performances with the DNA of their lives. Line-readings are out of the equation, so the acting is reduced to reactions, flat-toned conversation, and tamped-down emotions.

And their eyes. "It's all in the eyes, really," said Laurence Olivier, and this trio's "windows to the soul" are doing 80% of the work with fascinating results. Pretty soon, story is reduced to reaction and eyes that sparkle, harden, and hide...and betray inner thoughts, even un-scripted ones. It may not be the most dynamic film in the world, but for taking the mystery out of the film-making, and film-acting process, it makes for a very interesting watch.

Side Effects

This was written at the time of the film's release...

First, Do No Harm
or
Physician, Heal Thyself

One of my great joys in life is watching happy-pharm' commercials that spend ten of their thirty seconds extolling the virtues of their chemicals ("It stops your brain from telling you you're SAD!"), then the last 20 of them warning about all the dire side effects of said chemicals up to and including death (and maybe beyond).  That's comedy gold right there, masquerading as serious medical advice, wrapped in ad hucksterism.*

Now, prolific director Steve Soderbergh, who started his career twenty four years ago with Sex, Lies, and Videotape is saying he will end his commercial film career** with Side Effects, an odd mixing of genres that has as its basis all those little warnings for the mystery "miracle" pills that are being foisted on the public for the slightest of symptoms and moods, with the tentative approval of the FDA, and a library of law-suits, concerning their consequences on real human beings. In that way, it plays on a public's paranoia and trust of just what kind of human experiments might be being financed by the drug cartels, in much the same way as Hitchcock messed with our minds with our basic fears in his long career.  Soderbergh has never been this direct in his work before, making something akin to a traditional suspense-thriller, instead of a character study with sociological underpinnings (The Informant!,  Contagion, S, L, and V, Traffic) as we're used to from his previous work.

It's a pretty basic story, with some nicely diverting echoes of recent headlines: Emily Taylor (Rooney Mara) works for a New York marketing agency and is dealing with a lot of stress in her life. Her husband (Channing Tatum) is being released from prison after four years for insider trading.  She's been struggling with these issues for awhile, and being treated for depression over the circumstances. But, once husband comes home, things take a turn for the worst.  

Or actually, don't take a turn—Emily drives her late-model car directly into a garage wall—rather than heading for the "Exit" arrow, she runs INTO the "Exit" arrow. 

She suffers a concussion and is taken to the hospital, where she comes under the watchful eye of Dr. Jonathan Banks (Jude Law) who knows exactly what's wrong by deducing "usually when someone hits a brick wall, there are skid marks." Emily doesn't want to be a bother, and bargains her way out of the E.R. by promising to visit Dr. Banks for therapy.

At this point, a responsible reviewer should say: "Warning: complications may occur, consult your physician." Let's just say "things get messy" and merely suggest that a nasty case of medical ethics can turn into...a really nasty case of all kinds of ethics. To say any more would spoil the bumpy ride the film provides, but one doesn't risk too much by sharing a particularly nifty exchange around which the whole film hinges: "Did the person do it? Are they guilty?" "In the present case, those are two very different things." Nice little piece of writing, that.

The screenwriter is Scott Z. Burns (who also wrote Contagion and The Informant!) and he's constructed a medical thriller that takes a few hairpin turns and manages to avoid the guardrails of audience expectations and movie cliches. And Soderbergh (who shot and edited the film) has cast it impeccably with folks he's worked with before: Law, who's usually fared better at smaller character parts, here finally shows he can carry off a "leading man" role, dominating the film, while making "normal" interesting; Catherine Zeta-Jones shows (again) how versatile she can be in a small but crucial role as a consulting shrink; Channing Tatum makes the most of his part as the husband caught up in a world that he's just re-entered but can't understand. And Soderbergh rookie Rooney Mara gives a complex performance that's more than a little unpredictable (not surprising, given her history of moving from a straight performance in The Social Network to anything-but in Fincher's version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) looking like what you'd imagine Sandra Bullock's creepy little sister might look like, Mara convincingly pulls off mood shifts that might require an exorcist rather than a prescription.

Sorry...sorry. I shouldn't have used the word "creepy!"

In many ways, Side Effects is the film many expected last year's Flight to be: instead of a straight-forward look at addictions and their crises, a lot of viewers were expecting there to be some mystery that would neatly tie loose ends and vindicate its protagonist.  But, Side Effects plays with societal responsibility and legalities in a time when the very nature of people's natures is being altered, in the same way that Michael Crichton used to explore science's impacts on us in his books and films, provoking such tough questions and "Are we prepared for this?" "Just because we can do this, should we, and how will we deal with the fall-out?"

In any case, in the theater or after-movie discussions, Side Effects will not cause drowsiness.

Jude Law learns his practice isn't perfect in Side Effects

* SNL did a fine parody of this type of advertising with a fictional toy-product, the generically-labelled "Happy Fun Ball:"

**  We'll see how long that lasts, but Soderbergh has long grated against turning out commercial product (the one-two punch last year of Haywire and Magic Mike, notwithstanding) for the sake of commercial product, wanting to experiment with non-box-officey topics and distribution avenues. 

2024 Update: Yeah, he shows no signs of stopping—Presence is coming out this year and after that, a project called Blackbag.

The Killer (2023)

WWJWBD?

or

Skepticism is often mistaken for cynicism. (Suuuure, it is...)

Stick to your plan.

 

Anticipate. Don't improvise.

 

Trust no one.

 

Never yield an advantage.

 

Fight only the battle you're paid to fight.

 

Forbid empathy. Empathy is weakness. Weakness is vulnerability. 

 

Each and every step of the way ask yourself: what's in it for me? 

 

This is what it takes. 

 

What you must commit yourself to...if you want to succeed.

Simple.

 

It's the mantra by which the hired sniper (played by Michael Fassbender and unnamed except for some wildly amusing aliases on his I.D.'s and credit cards—he can't be accused of identity theft but might be in violation of the recent writer's strike) of David Fincher's The Killer (based on a graphic novel series by Alexis Nolent—ndp Matz—and Luc Jacamon) lives his life and dutifully repeats to himself after all the anticipation stops and he's actually required to pull a trigger—and only then, if his pulse-rate is hovering at 60.

It's the waiting that kills you. He keeps his body in shape with daily exercise, a light diet of protein—McDonald's...really?—and his mind focused with a steady stream of The Smiths and the aphorisms constantly scrolling through his head. 

 

He is in Paris, taking up temporary residence in an abandoned WeWork space across from a plush Paris penthouse that he constantly eyes for any sign of activity...or of a target. He's received an assignment, but the intended corpse is late. And this gun-man hates that. It's rude, for one thing. And if his intel is wrong about this, what else is off-track? Not that he knows anything about the target. He's not there to judge. "My process is purely logistical," he muses "narrowly focused by design. I'm not here to take sides. It's not my place to formulate any opinion. No one who can afford me, needs to waste time winning me to some cause. I serve no god, or country. I fly no flag. If I'm effective, it's because of one simple fact: I. Don't. Give. A. Fuck ."

But, he does, as far as the inefficiency goes. Cameras are everywhere. And though he purposely dresses as a German tourist to discourage any recognition...or interest...he can't help but think that his constant presence will gradually work against him, despite his M.O. of "redundancies, redundancies, and redundancies." On "Annie Oakley jobs" like this one, it's the details. "It only takes a few episodes of 'Dateline' to know there are countless ways to trip yourself up. If you can think of a dozen, you're a genius. I'm no genius." Later, he will get nostalgic: "When was my last, nice, quiet drowning?"

Maybe he should have waited until the guy got in the hotel pool. It wouldn't be a very interesting idea for a movie if everything went according to his plan. And little-by-little, that mantra becomes increasingly irrelevant and The Great Anticipator finds that he must improvise...a lot. The redundancies, redundancies, redundancies become complications, complications, complications. And, for once, he has to deal with the consequences as they hit closer to home. He finds it tough to be a target.

"I blame you...for having to bring my work home," he muses at one point. 

 

The Killer is fine, if you don't mind spend spending so much time with a conscienceless sociopath who has the advantage of never having to stick around for the aftermath—that's just something he never needs to calculate. But, when the tables turn and he actually has to give one of those fucks, there is no apparent empathy shift. He's still the coldly calculating death merchant with a penchant for pretense. And given his track record for playing sublimation and even mechanization, Fassbender is the perfect guy to play him. He's on-camera for most of the movie's running time, constantly in the sights of the view-finder and those types of marathons are tough to pull off. But, he does it with a seeming ease as the toughest thing his character can do is crack a smile.

Ultimately, it's a revenge movie—his clients don't like the outcome of the job he was hired for and so they go after him—and he has to methodically go up the chain, finding his contact, finding out his contacts, and taking them out one by one. He finds out "who", but the "why" is a bit of a mystery, unless you ascribe his own philosophy to their motivations: "From the beginning of history, the few have always exploited the many. This is the cornerstone of civilization. The blood and mortar that binds all bricks. Whatever it takes, make sure you're one of the few, not one of the many." And so he goes about his business. Whatever it takes.

Fincher's direction is full of his feints and slights of hand—the time-transitions in a cut, the "impossible" shots (he did start out in special effects and he's in his wheel-house in a CGI-world—see the video below), all carefully controlled, composed and edited with a distinctive *snap* to them. It all looks simple, but what it takes to achieve that effect is extraordinarily complicated. That it's in service to another "revenge" plot is a bit disheartening. That it's something Fincher has wanted to make for years is more than a little depressing.

Fincher is such a craftsman, that he shouldn't be punching down. Maybe he had an extra commitment to Netflix for making Mank. Maybe he wanted to see if he could curb his instincts for budget and length and make something spare with both. Maybe the option to the graphic novel's film-rights were going to lapse. Or maybe this is his attempt to make a comedy ( although I've always considered Fincher's Fight Club more of a comedy) with its assassin who seems to have grown his habit for internal monologue watching "Dexter." Maybe it's his way of making a "John Wick" movie (why you'd want to, aside from the absurdity of it, escapes me). But, this is more This Gun For Hire than Le Samouraï.

 

If he was looking to make art, he was aiming a little low.

"Of those who like to put their faith in the inherent goodness of mankind,

 I have to ask, 'Based on what, exactly?'"