TWO PATHS FOR THE ASSASSIN
David Fincher’s ‘The Killer’ vs. Harmony Korine’s ‘Aggro Dr1ft’
The best (only?) joke in The Killer comes toward the end when Michael Fassbender’s hit man is confronting the billionaire client who’s been trying to off him since he botched a job. This strangely Chicago-residing tech plutocrat is found in his penthouse carrying a couple of bottles of wine, talking into a non-handheld device, and wearing a SubPop Records T-shirt. Well, of course the sniveling Gen X nerd overlord is an indie rock fan (at least retrospectively). Before Fincher made his famous films of the 1990s, Se7en and Fight Club, he was a big time music video director, working often with Madonna. My favorite of his works remains the video for Don Henley’s “The End of the Innocence.” The image of the erstwhile Eagles drummer in a dark trench coat standing in a field singing about the American heartland getting its cherry popped (or whatever) is a splendid Tireseas-like sage of the many sadists (with their deadpan soundtracks: the Pixies, Bowie, Annie Lennox, Nine Inch Nails) who have populated Fincher’s movies since, from Kevin Spacey’s weasel serial killer, to Tyler Durden, to Stellan Skarsgaard’s Swede with the torture chamber in Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Have we been poisoned by these fairy tales? (Sorry.)