A hit man who's strong to the finish

IF YOU'VE BEEN WATCHING MOVIES FOR A while, David Fincher's The Killer-which arrives Nov. 10 on Netflix-might be your 100th movie about a contract killer, or even your 500th. It's a genre that springs eternal, yet modern directors often think they need to make these stories elaborate and convoluted to keep an audience engaged, when maybe the opposite is true.

- STEPHANIE ZACHAREK

That's what makes Fincher's movie a cut above. Instead of overloading his story with fussy layers, he pares everything back to the genre's essence. What we're left with is a killer and his conscience, or whatever he's got that might pass for one. In Fincher's hands, that narrowed focus expands the genre's possibilities rather than shrinking them-especially with an actor like Michael Fassbender at the center of it all, playing a radiantly ruthless killer with no name and no shame.