THE KILLER ****

 There was a time when a David Fincher movie was something of an event but not any more. Movies like "The Game" and "Panic Room" were disappointments although he made a sterling comeback with "The Social Network" and showed he could still turn out a Grade A thriller with "Gone Girl". "Mank", however, for all the arty posturings, seemed like a step backward. Also he hasn't been particularly prolific with only twelve features in the last thirty years and, taken on face value, there was no reason to expect "The Killer", his first film in three years, would be anything but another disappointment, just another addition to the 'assassin-for-hire' genre but Fincher's never been a man to be discounted and this might just be the movie that will redeem him. It's certainly the best thing he's done since "The Social Network", a visually stunning, funny, exciting and hugely enjoyable entertainment and Fincher directs it magnificently.

Perhaps to work as well as it does, of course, it needs the right actor at the centre and in Michael Fassbender it certainly has that. With his granite features Fassbender is the perfect man to play an assassin...or James Bond, take your pick. The problem is he constantly looks like an assassin whether he's aiming a gun at someone or buying a pint of milk which, of course, may be no bad thing if you're dealing with the bad guys. The plot is the old chestnut of the hit that goes wrong meaning the hitter then becomes the target. We've seen it a hundred times before but seldom done with this much brio or style.

Fassbender is never off the screen which means any other actors of note, (Arliss Howard, Charles Parnell, Tilda Swinton), are merely satellites buzzing around him but they do what they have to do very nicely and in Swinton's case quite brilliantly while Andrew Kevin Walker's quick-witted and genuinely funny script from Alexis Nolent and Luc Luc Jacamon's illustrated novel tackles all the cliches head on, often pulling the rug away when we least expect it. In an age when so many movies look and sound just the like the one before it's a pleasure to find one as enjoyable and as original as this.