‘The Killer’ Ending Explained: Did Michael Fassbender Miss on Purpose?

David Fincher is going back to basics with The Killer, his new understated assassin thriller movie that began streaming on Netflix today.

Based on the French graphic novel series of the same name, with a screenplay by Andrew Kevin Walker (who also penned Fincher’s 1995 film, Se7en) The Killer stars Fassbender as a trained assassin who, despite all his big talk about being in complete control, makes a big mistake on a job, and is forced to deal with the fallout. Also starring Arliss Howard, Charles Parnell, Kerry O’Malley, Sala Baker, Sophie Charlotte, and Tilda Swinton, The Killer is a surprisingly quiet film, given its subject matter. Much the film’s “dialogue,” is not conversation, but simply Fassbender narrating his character’s inner monologue via voiceover.

Because of this, it’s easy to lose the subtle details of the plot along the way. Luckily for you, Decider is here to help. Read on for a full breakdown of The Killer movie plot summary and an analysis of The Killer ending explained.

The Killer movie plot summary:

We meet an assassin, the unnamed killer played Michael Fassbender, while he’s staking out a hit job in Paris. Fassbender waxes poetic via voiceover about his job and life, as he endures the monotony of waiting for his target to return to his Paris apartment. Fassbender is staked out in an abandoned WeWork building, and he wakes up at regular intervals in the night to check to see if target is home. And lo behold, one time when he wakes to check, his target is home. The target is a wealthy businessman, who brings home a beautiful woman. She begins to strip off her clothes for him.

Fassbender blasts The Smiths in his headphones and lines up his rifle. He thinks this mantra to himself, “Stick to your plan. Trust no one. Forbid empathy. Anticipate, don’t improvise.” He lowers his heart rate to under 65 beats per minute. He seems extremely confident in himself. He squeezes the trigger… and misses. He hits the woman instead of the man. Fuck!

Horrified by his mistake, Fassbender feels the scene and disposes of his weapons before the police arrive. He calls his employer, a lawyer named Hodges (Charles Parnell), who is not happy and says they must do whatever they are asked by the client who hired the hit to make up for the mistake.

Fassbender takes a plane to his house in the Dominican Republic, where he discovers his girlfriend, Magdala (Sophie Charlotte) has been attacked. She is alive, but badly injured, and in the hospital. Fassbender intends to get revenge. Using intel from his girlfriend’s brother—who says that the attackers arrived in a green taxi cab—Fassbender finds the driver and shakes him down for info. He learns that his girlfriend was attacked by “a freak and a lady.” The driver describes the lady “as a Q-tip” and the man as a “scary motherfucker.”

From there, Fassbender pays a visit to his lawyer employer, Hodges. Fassbender tells the audience that Hodges convinced Fassbender to drop out of law school and work for him as an assassin. He cons his way into Hodges’ office and demands the contact information for the two people who attacked his girlfriend. When Hodges refuses, Fassbender destroys his laptop and shoots Hodges with a nail gun. (It’s not clear why Fassbender didn’t simply take the laptop to find the contact info on them, but maybe he just wanted to do things the hard way.) But even as he lays dying, Hodges refuses to give up the information on the attackers. And Hodges dies must faster than Fassbender anticipated. I’m starting to think this guy isn’t actually good at killing people!

Luckily for Fassbender, Hodges’ secretary, Dolores (Kerry O’Malley), tells the killer that she has the contact information at home, and she’d be willing to share—provided Fassbender kills her in a non-suspicious way that will allow her family to collect her life insurance. Fassbender follows her to her house, collects the names of the attacker and the client, and then snaps Dolores’s neck and pushes her down the stairs. So, he gave her the kind of death that she asked for.

Fassbender tracks down and kills the first attacker in Florida. But he’s not all bad—he doesn’t kill the dude’s dog. Next up, the “Q-tip” lady, aka Oscar-winning actress Tilda Swinton.

Who is Tilda Swinton’s character in The Killer?

Tilda Swinton plays a character credited only as “The Expert.” She is a fellow assassin, who was contracted to kill Fassbender after he botched his hit job. Unlike the other attacker, Swinton doesn’t try to fight Fassbender and seems to accept that he will kill her. She tells Fassbender that she regrets attacking his girlfriend because she doesn’t like to involve civilians. She also tells him a little joke about a hunter who keeps taking a shot at a bear, missing, and taking the bear’s deal to be sodomized rather than killed. The third time the hunter misses, the bear tells him, “You’re not really out here for the hunting, are you?” implying that the hunter likes getting screwed by the bear.

It’s a crude metaphor for Fassbender’s character—he’s both a masochist and sadist, who actually likes the dirty indignities of his job. That’s why he hasn’t chosen the most efficient way to kill Swinton, and, perhaps, why he keeps making mistakes. He’s addicted to the drama, the pain, and the cruelty. Swinton even implies that Fassbender may have missed that shot in Paris on purpose. He was tired of the monotony, perhaps hating himself for his sins, and wanted to sodomize himself.

Fassbender takes Swinton out behind the restaurant to kill her. Swinton feigns slipping on the ice, and asks Fassbender for a hand. Instead, Fassbender shoots her in the head, killing her. We see that Swinton was holding a knife in other hand—she was intending to fight, after all.

The Killer movie ending explained:

Fassbender’s final stop in The Killer is a visit to the billionaire client, Claybourne (Arliss Howard), who originally hired him, and then, apparently, ordered a hit on Fassbender after he missed. Fassbender asks Claybourne if they have a problem, and Claybourne insists that, no, he has no problem. Claybourne claims that Hodges offered to “scrub the trail” after the botched job, and Claybourne agreed, not even sure what that entailed. Fassbender allows him to live, but promises that he will find a painful way to kill Claybourne if he raises any trouble.

In the last scene of the movie, Fassbender returns to his home in the Dominican Republic. His girlfriend, Magdala, has recovered. In a voice-over, Fassbender insists he only did what he did in order to feel secure in his retirement. He maintains that he is “one of the few” who is perfectly suited to his former job as an assassin—aka someone who is able to detach from empathy and endure the monotony. Sure, Jan!

The Killer leaves it up to the audience to form an opinion on Fassbender’s character. Is he the cool, calm, collected killer who simply made a mistake, and did the logical thing in correcting his error? Or, as Swinton’s character said, is he secretly a self-hating sadist who regrets his life of crime, and decides to punish not only himself but everyone else involved in the whole racket? Or was it all a mastermind plan to get himself out of this assassin life, kill off all those loose ends, and enjoy his life with Magdala?

Again, it’s up to you to decide. But one thing can be said for sure: That dude sure is a killer!