I read about twenty random reviews for this film here on IMDb, and no one mentions the aliases used by Michael Fassbender's character as he globe trots seeking revenge on the assassins who busted up his girlfriend (Sophie Charlotte) in the Dominican Republic. There's probably someone out there who did, but I'm not going through all seven hundred plus as I write this to find out. Which sort of indicates to me that most folks using this site are on the young side of forty, since the sit-com character names used by The Killer (Fassbender) all predated 1982. I counted nine throughout the story, and realized what was going on with the very first one, namely Felix Unger, the name on the credit card The Killer used to book the flight out of Paris. The only one I didn't know I had to look up; it was Reuben Kincaid, and that's because I didn't watch that program. If I looked it up, you can too. I got all the other eight right off, having watched all those shows when they were hit series. I thought the idea was pretty cool throughout the story.
What wasn't cool was The Killer missing his shot after the first twenty minutes or so of methodical narration of the assassin's craft by the patient protagonist. It made him look sort of incompetent. And then, when he left in a hurry, he voiced a question that struck me as highly irrelevant - What would John Wilkes Booth do? Why would he want to follow that advice - Booth got caught. That didn't make sense to me. The rest of the story wasn't too bad, as he tracks down his handler Hodges (Charles Parnell), who thought he could talk his way out of certain death. He should have known better. I don't agree with another reviewer who felt he didn't have to kill the secretary Dolores (Kerry O'Malley). You just don't leave witnesses around who can talk afterward, so Dolores had to go. The fight with the Brute was filmed in such low light that you couldn't really tell who had the advantage most of the time, while knowing it was Fassbinder's film and he would have to come out on top. The Killer's dialog with The Expert, aka Q-Tip girl (Tilda Swinton) might have been the most provocative scene in the story, and for one moment I thought she might turn the tables on him, but then again, refer to my earlier mention of it being Fassbinder's picture.
All in all, not too bad of an assassin movie, though it's not in the same league as say, "Léon: The Professional" or the 'Kill Bill' films. I liked Fassbender's presence as the single-minded assassin, having the right look and temperament, but unfortunately failing in his opening assignment. The ending too, was sort of a letdown after finally getting to Claybourne Arliss Howard). Maybe he let the guy off the hook for a sequel. There's a lot more aliases available out there.
What wasn't cool was The Killer missing his shot after the first twenty minutes or so of methodical narration of the assassin's craft by the patient protagonist. It made him look sort of incompetent. And then, when he left in a hurry, he voiced a question that struck me as highly irrelevant - What would John Wilkes Booth do? Why would he want to follow that advice - Booth got caught. That didn't make sense to me. The rest of the story wasn't too bad, as he tracks down his handler Hodges (Charles Parnell), who thought he could talk his way out of certain death. He should have known better. I don't agree with another reviewer who felt he didn't have to kill the secretary Dolores (Kerry O'Malley). You just don't leave witnesses around who can talk afterward, so Dolores had to go. The fight with the Brute was filmed in such low light that you couldn't really tell who had the advantage most of the time, while knowing it was Fassbinder's film and he would have to come out on top. The Killer's dialog with The Expert, aka Q-Tip girl (Tilda Swinton) might have been the most provocative scene in the story, and for one moment I thought she might turn the tables on him, but then again, refer to my earlier mention of it being Fassbinder's picture.
All in all, not too bad of an assassin movie, though it's not in the same league as say, "Léon: The Professional" or the 'Kill Bill' films. I liked Fassbender's presence as the single-minded assassin, having the right look and temperament, but unfortunately failing in his opening assignment. The ending too, was sort of a letdown after finally getting to Claybourne Arliss Howard). Maybe he let the guy off the hook for a sequel. There's a lot more aliases available out there.