The Killer

Director John Woo's second pass at The Killer is a peculiar film, one that feels frozen in a specific, cinematic moment. The screenplay, credited to Josh Campbell, Matt Stuecken and Brian Helgeland, although presumably penned (or at least punched up) recently bears marks associated with the American studio system of the 1990s. Back then, when the likes of Walter Hill and David Giler were circling Woo's original for a remake, it seemed as if Hollywood, as an industry, was obsessed with ironing every property set before it into an easily digestible mulch. As if working on behalf of an audience of buffoons who would, it was then assumed, refuse to entertain the more impressionistic thematic axis of the original piece or, really, any sense of ambiguity at all. Despite retaining Woo at the helm, this Killer - Nathalie Emmanuel's extremely photogenic Killer - is exactly as feared. An overly literal remake that decodes the 1989 film along stringent, and far less interesting moral lines all while insisting that this supernatural murderer have a tragic, flashback-stated past. Omar Sy, the star of Netflix's Lupin series, is a highlight though. The actor a pleasant alternative to Danny Lee's Detective, able to play up the more cartoonish, Spy vs. Spy aspects of the film without allowing them to slip completely into farce. Woo does have some fun here as well - literalising the connection between his Hong Kong project and Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Samouraï through the Paris location; while also taking scissors to the frame when mapping out the competing perspectives found in heists, much like Norman Jewison did when assembling The Thomas Crown Affair - but this juiceless exercise is best described in terms of the lack of excitement its gadgets generate: a puttering, electric motorcycle that glides about, responsibly or the silenced competition pistols that track sad, computer generated splatters onto their targets.