THE KILLER15

Fass-assin’s creed…

DIRECTOR David Fincher STARRING Michael Fassbender, Charles Parnell, Tilda Swinton, Arliss Howard, Kerry O’Malley SCREENPLAY Andrew Kevin Walker DISTRIBUTOR Netflix RUNNING TIME 118 mins

★★★★★ OUT 27 OCTOBER CINEMAS 10 NOVEMBER NETFLIX

Oddly, no one complained about Michael’s back-seat driving

Aperfectionist who’s never without a banging playlist, the assassin at the centre of David Fincher’s latest is clearly a man after the filmmaker’s own heart. Based on the graphic novels by Matz and Luc Jacamon, the film itself shares DNA with Fincher’s Fight Club (nihilism, anti-materialism) and Bullet Train (same hat, similar hitman problem).

The Killer follows Michael Fassbender’s monastic freelancer as he explains his craft while prepping for a job in Paris. Holed up in a vacant WeWork office, this unnamed agent of death outlines the discipline required to successfully off a mark and melt back into a city. But when a seemingly straightforward gig goes south, compromising the hitman’s practised regime, he finds himself hunted and breaking his own rules on a globetrotting revenge mission.

The notion of a contract murderer making things personal isn’t new. But Fincher has fun with the genre, loading his propulsive narrative with cool needle drops, pop-culture hat-tips (Antiques Roadshow, aliases that are all TV characters) and Bondian ingenuity. Split into seven chapters that play out in different global cities, the action may be serious but the gags are plentiful, from Tilda Swinton telling a bear joke to the comedic appearance of a parmesan grater during a terrific house brawl. The pragmatic approach to death required by the job is lightly handled, too. Fassbender talks of mortality statistics and refers to body disposal in carpentry terms; those in the business understand, without undue fuss, that their time is up when he shows his face. That’s not to say Fassbender isn’t brutal. Dressed in nondescript tourist-chic beiges and driving pedestrian hire cars, he may fade easily into crowds, but he’s a lethal weapon – no hesitation, no mercy. Dispatching loose ends with nail guns, stair falls and backseat executions, he allows his victims to talk while he listens, unmoved.

Conversely, Fassbender’s voiceover is the main draw for viewers: the internal monologue of an agnostic man who assures us from the start that luck and justice are not real. Moving and scarfing protein like a predator, he offers no real context for his job; no backstory except an allusion to legal academia. His very blankness allows us to project meaning onto him, giving one of the filmmaker’s more commercial movies a layer of added nuance. And if you’ve ever wondered what a Fincher Bond movie might look like, this could be it.

JANE CROWTHER

THE VERDICT Fincher in fun mode and Fassbender, ahem, killing it. An assassin thriller that really hits the mark.

THE ROYAL HOTEL TBC

★★★★★ OUT 3 NOVEMBER CINEMAS

Kitty Green’s The Assistant (2019) was set in a hellish work environment presided over by a shadowy, Harvey Weinstein-esque figure. Her potent follow-up evinces similar disdain for toxic masculinity, featuring as it does the most loathsome collection of supporting male characters imaginable. Young Canadian backpackers Hanna (The Assistant’s Julia Garner) and Liv (Jessica Henwick) take up a gig at a pub in a remote Australian mining community. Soon we’re engulfed in an all-too-familiar nightmare of booze, bad vibes and misogyny, played out over a brisk but harrowing 91 minutes.

DOCTOR JEKYLL TBC

★★★★★ OUT 27 OCTOBER CINEMAS

Eddie Izzard headlines a modern take on the iconic horror yarn, helmed by Joe Stephenson. Hired as a caregiver for the reclusive Nina Jekyll (Izzard), Rob (Scott Chambers) is thrust into a centuries-old battle for supremacy, caught between the doctor and her sinister alter ego. Canny casting and spirited performances enliven the Hammer brand’s latest, with Izzard hamming it up in a series of outlandish monologues. Though sluggishly paced and missing the classic story’s requisite Gothic atmosphere, it redeems itself with an OTT finale and lashings of camp.

OUR RIVER… OUR SKY 12A

★★★★★ OUT 20 OCTOBER CINEMAS

Set in a small Baghdad community enduring horrific sectarian violence, Maysoon Pachachi’s multi-stranded drama paints a deeply moving, at times poetic portrait of the devastation inflicted. Employing an ensemble of largely non-professional actors, Pachachi (a documentarian here making her narrative debut) illuminates the lives of those who suffer the consequences of geopolitical powers willing to sacrifice others for their own gain. Unsurprisingly, it makes for an intense two hours, yet delivers an experience that is upsetting for all the right reasons.

THE MIRACLE CLUB 12A

★★★★★ OUT 13 OCTOBER CINEMAS

A fine cast -Maggie Smith, Laura Linney and Kathy Bates spearheads this sweet-natured, if unsurprising, comedy drama. Directed by Thaddeus O’Sullivan (The Heart of Me), it sees a group of women from a working-class Dublin suburb make the pilgrimage to Lourdes, France, where thousands flock in the hope of witnessing a religious miracle. What follows isn’t exactly radical, but the script serves up some fun moments, largely at the expense of the hapless husbands left behind. Smith is her usual puckish self, while Linney injects genuine class.

NANDOR FODOR AND THE TALKING MONGOOSE 12

★★★★★ OUT 20 OCTOBER PRIME VIDEO

A true story inspired this underdeveloped curio, a film that never quite does its bizarre subject justice. Simon Pegg plays parapsychologist Nandor, a sceptic investigating claims about a talking mongoose named Gef on a farm in 1937. Writer/director Adam Sigal flirts with themes of faith/belief and celebrity/hysteria but struggles to refine his intent, ending up in a handsome but hollow nowhere zone between whimsical comedy and sincere drama. Despite on-point casting and period detail, this mystery remains stubbornly opaque.

SUITABLE FLESH TBC

★★★★★ OUT 27 OCTOBER CINEMAS, DIGITAL

This outrageous tale of bodily transference finds director Joe Lynch (Knights of Badassdom) channelling the late Stuart Gordon, offering up a hearty tribute to the cult Re-Animator maker. Loosely adapted from H.P. Lovecraft’s 1933 story The Thing on the Doorstep, it’s an erotic body horror that centres on a pair of psychiatrists (played by Heather Graham and Gordon fave Barbara Crampton) who become entangled in a freaky (Friday) occult ritual. Lynch’s lurid pastiche delivers all the sex and splatter of ’80s-era Gordon, while injecting an ample dose of his own metalhead sensibilities.

MUZZLE 15

★★★★★ OUT 7 NOVEMBER PRIME VIDEO

Los Angeles cop-on-the-edge Jake Rosser (Aaron Eckhart) must break in a new partner to track down the drug dealers who killed his last one. The kicker? Both old and new partners are dogs. Director John Stalberg Jr. and co-writer Carlyle Eubank (2014’s The Signal) take this Simpsons-esque concept very seriously indeed, which leads to several laugh-out-loud moments, such as when our hero grumbles, ‘There’s something you’re not telling me!’ to his four-legged pal. Eckhart deserves better, but there’s fun to be had with what basically amounts to a po-faced K9 sequel that wants to be Training Day 2.

THE BYSTANDERS TBC

★★★★★ OUT 3 NOVEMBER CINEMAS

A sci-fi concept receives a Shaun of the Dead-ish remix in this sketchy but scruffily inventive Brit-com. Scott Haran plays Peter, a child chess prodigy turned office sad sack recruited as a ‘bystander’: an alt-dimensional angel tasked with guiding a subject’s earthly life. His bond with recruiter Frank (Seann Walsh) adds Wings of Desire-ish touches, which extend to writer/ director Gabriel Foster Prior’s colour/black-and-white images. Though stronger on set-up than story, Prior’s mix of workplace comedy and self-help satire has style, charm and wit on its side.

TIME ADDICTS 18

★★★★★ OUT NOW ICON FILM CHANNEL 27 OCTOBER CINEMAS

Adapting his own short film into a feature-length debut, writer/ director Sam Odlum delivers an unsettling time-travel story filled with grime, mind-warping twists and a wicked sense of humour. When drug-dependent BFFs Denise (Freya Tingley) and Johnny (Charles Grounds) undertake a job to steal some mysterious dope, they discover that dipping into the stash lets them jump backwards and forwards in time, leading to trippy revelations fraught with danger. A genuinely clever plot and terrific performances make for a funny, original sci-fi, bracingly laced with immorality.

SPOOKY NIGHT: THE SPIRIT OF HALLOWEEN 12

★★★★★ OUT 13 OCTOBER CINEMAS 16 OCTOBER DVD, DIGITAL

Staging a lock-in at real-life US mall institution Spirit Halloween, three bickering tweens find themselves besieged by murderous animatronics, each possessed by the town ghoul (Christopher Lloyd, not quite phoning it in, but not fully present either). From kids on bikes to a cap-gun arsenal, David Poag’s family-friendly horror hits all the beats established by the likes of The Monster Squad and Stranger Things. The action sequences are well staged, but this corporate tie-in lacks the essential wit and bite of those it imitates.

SMOKE SAUNA SISTERHOOD 15

★★★★★ OUT 13 OCTOBER CINEMAS

At once intimate and intensely private, Anna Hints’ excellent doc spotlights a group of Estonian women baring body and soul in the wood-fired saunas of Vana-Võromaa. These rituals offer a kind of spiritual deep cleanse: away from societal dictates, the women feel empowered to discuss their innermost thoughts, from motherhood to queer identity. Though laughs are abundant (one woman wonders if ‘dick pic’ is a social-media site) it culminates in a dark personal anecdote that feels like a cathartic, cleansing exorcism, toxins dissipating in the smoke.

A HAUNTING IN VENICE 12A

★★★★★ OUT NOW CINEMAS

Nimbly grafting an eerie Halloween spook-fest onto an old-school whodunnit, Kenneth Branagh’s latest Poirot foray delivers both laughs and tingles. The former stem from Tina Fey’s Ariadne Oliver, a writer of mysteries (and walking in-joke). The chills, meanwhile, arrive after she’s coaxed Branagh’s moustachioed detective out of retirement to attend a seance in a palazzo, where the mood soon turns murderous. The eventual solution to the central puzzle is somewhat bemusing, but there’s plenty to savour en route, from the opulent production design to the eclectic cast.

HOW TO SAVE THE IMMORTAL PG

★★★★★ OUT 27 OCTOBER CINEMAS

Dubbed into English following its native Russian release, this animated fantasy tells a familiar tale of distressed damsels and cuddly monsters. Blackmailed into kidnapping heiress Barbara the Brave (Liza Klimova), immortal aristocrat Drybone (Andrey Kurganov) soon begins falling for his plucky captive. Entire chunks of dialogue are fumbled thanks to wooden performances, while the blocky animation fails to bring the characters to life. The madcap action may keep little ones entertained, but much is seemingly lost in translation.

HOLLYWOOD DREAMS & NIGHTMARES: THE ROBERT ENGLUND STORY 15

★★★★★ OUT NOW ICON FILM CHANNEL 6 NOVEMBER BD, DIGITAL

Horror icon Englund proves an engaging subject in this documentary exploring not just Elm Street but his entire career. At just over two hours, the film verges on info overload. Still, there are fun anecdotes, insights from colleagues and surprising revelations about his connections to the Star Wars and Halloween franchises. There’s also a rewarding throughline about how Englund’s initial frustration with being typecast as Freddie gave way to new career highs once he fully embraced the character.

SAVAGE WATERS 12A

★★★★★ OUT 27 OCTOBER CINEMAS

A 19th-century treasure hunter’s journal is the spur for a veteran skipper and record-breaking surfer to seek out a legendary wave in treacherous Atlantic waters. Though beautifully shot – the surfing footage in particular – Michael Corker’s documentary is never quite as thrilling as its premise suggests. But even when their seemingly chimeric quest suffers crushing setbacks, the protagonists are amiable company. Meanwhile, as Charles Dance reads from the original tome, Corker smartly plays up the unlikely symmetry between modern and Victorian adventurers.

ON THE ADAMANT PG

★★★★★ OUT 3 NOVEMBER CINEMAS, CURZON HOME CINEMA

The Adamant in question is a floating barge that houses a day-care centre for individuals with psychiatric disorders. Moored in the Seine in central Paris, its therapeutic programme offers workshops in art, dance, poetry and music-making. Winner of the Berlin Film Festival’s Golden Bear, this empathetic documentary from Nicolas Philibert (Être et Avoir) isn’t concerned with clinical diagnoses. Eschewing voiceover commentary, it instead allows its vulnerable subjects to talk candidly about their lives and to display their creativity, thus challenging our preconceptions about mental illness.