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Facing the Enemy

Linden Ashby (Griff McCleary) Maxwell Caulfield (Harlan Moss) Alexandra Paul (Olivia McCleary) Melanie Wilson (Cassie Ives) Cynthia Preston (Nikki Mayhew) Bruce Weitz (Lt. Carl Runyon) Max Gail (Thomas Galloway) Christopher Comes (Benny Janovic) June Chadwick (Irene Spellman) Patricia Harty (Sandra Galloway) Greg Fitzpatrick (Brett) Judith Montgomery (Dolly Dixon) Dyllan Christopher (Kevin McCleary) Emmett Shoemaker (Jeff) Anne Welles (Anita) Christopher Kriesa (Detective Stewart) Ron Smith (Man on the Street)

Robert Malenfant

Griff McCleary is a cop, now his son shot himself with Griff's gun. A year later both he and his wife are still reeling from it. Griff feeling shut out by his wife Olivia, decides to move out. Now he is investigating what appears to be a murder-suicide. He believes that there was no suicide. His investigation leads him to a girl named Nikki. It seems that Nikki is a little fragile and has not had much luck with men. When Griff helps her, she asks if she could stay with Griff, and after she and Griff sleep together, she learns that he is a cop and that he has been following her, shattered Nikki shoots herself. Griff is then suspended from the force. But he is unaware that her partner-lover, Harlan, wanting to get back at Griff, is pursuing Olivia, who is vulnerable after hearing what happened between Griff and Nikki.

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Facing the Enemy (2001)

Genre: thriller, duration: 98 minuten, country: united states, directed by: robert malenfant, stars: linden ashby , maxwell caulfield and alexandra paul, imdb score: 4,7  (304), releasedate: 9 october 2001.

Facing the Enemy plot

"He made one mistake... He slept with the killer's wife" Police officer Griff (Linden Ashby)'s 7-year-old son finds his father's service pistol and shoots himself. This puts a lot of pressure on Griff's marriage and Griff throws himself completely at work. He focuses entirely on a suicide case of a rich man and his wife. He finds indications that it was not suicide, but a brutal double murder. It turns out that more rich people are being murdered.

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Griff McCleary

Harlan Moss

Olivia McCleary

Cassie Ives

Nikki Mayhew

Lt. Carl Runyon

Thomas Galloway

Benny Janovic

Irene Spellman

Sandra Galloway

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Griff McCleary is a cop, now his son shot himself with Griff's gun. A year later both he and his wife are still reeling from it. Griff feeling shut out by his wife Olivia, decides to move out. Now he is investigating what appears to be a murder-suicide. He believes that there was no suicide. His investigation leads him to a girl named Nikki.

Streaming Charts The JustWatch Daily Streaming Charts are calculated by user activity within the last 24 hours. This includes clicking on a streaming offer, adding a title to a watchlist, and marking a title as 'seen'. This includes data from ~1.3 million movie & TV show fans per day.

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Facing the Enemy - Full Cast & Crew

• 1 hr 38 mins
• Watchlist Where to Watch

A Los Angeles cop (Linden Ashby) becomes estranged from his wife after their son dies, but then must come to her protection when his lover is murdered and the lover's husband plots revenge. Olivia: Alexandra Paul. Harlan Moss: Maxwell Caulfield. Nikki Mayhew: Cynthia Preston. Cassie Ives: Melanie Wilson. Lt. Carl Runyon: Bruce Weitz. Thomas Galloway: Max Gail. Directed by Robert Malenfant.

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Review: 'The Killer' falls gloriously into the right hands with director David Fincher

Are we lucky? We are, indeed.

In the wrong hands, a gun-for-hire movie can be a compendium of cliches that incites yawns instead of revelatory tremors. But "The Killer," now streaming on Netflix, falls gloriously into the right hands with director David Fincher calling the shots like the true cinema virtuoso he is.

Are we lucky? We are, indeed. It's a pleasure to behold Fincher doing his meticulous thing, putting his laser-focus on an unnamed assassin, played by Michael Fassbender, a mesmerizing actor unequaled at showing an angry flame flickering just under an uber-cool surface.

As written by Fincher's "Seven" collaborator Andrew Kevin Walker, based on French comic books by Luc Jacamon and Alexis "Matz" Nolent, "The Killer" is essential Fincher, not quite up there with "Fight Club" and "Zodiac" but raising hell in ways too satisfying to spoil in a review.

Holed up in an abandoned WeWork building in Paris, the killer trains his sniper rifle on a posh hotel suite just across the street. But he's playing a waiting game, marking time until his target shows up by scarfing McDonald's, practicing yoga and listening to the Smiths (his fave band).

MORE: 'All the Light We Cannot See' review: Audiences deserve better

He's also barking orders at himself in voiceover, reminding himself to keep his blood rate as chilled as a vampire's, ignore empathy at all costs ("It's a weakness") and telling us that if you don't like waiting around, maybe a job as a professional killer (or a film director) is not for you.

It's Fincher's deliciously depraved conceit that his process is not that different from the killer's. You can't watch this movie provocation without thinking of Fincher, the perfectionist behind the camera, the man who put Jesse Eisenberg through nearly a 100 takes to get the first scene of "The Social Network" absolutely right. Mistakes not allowed.

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Yet it's a mistake, a lethal and telling one, that kicks off this movie with the killer actually missing his target. Hodges (Charles Parness), his lawyer handler, offers to have the killer eliminated to placate the client. Hodges even sends two assailants to our boy's hideout in the Dominican Republic, where they beat his lover, Magdala (Sophie Charlotte) nearly to death.

Getting personal is crossing a line. And the killer forgets all his rules to exact revenge. Suddenly, the film has a pulse and the audience catches the heat. So does Fincher, taking the killer on a revenge odyssey, starting with Hodges in New Orleans (watch that nail gun) and moving on to Florida where he takes on the "Brute" (Sala Baker), who bashed Magdala's face into pulp.

It's in New York, where the killer finds the Brute's partner, a woman said to resemble a Q-tip. She's played by the terrific Tilda Swinton and she's a thrilling antagonist. Cornering her at a chic restaurant where she orders a flight of whiskey to steel herself for what's ahead, the killer comes close to meeting his match.

MORE: Review: Colman Domingo wears his role in 'Rustin' like a second skin

Swinton is electrifying in the role, fiercely funny as she distracts the killer with a fable about a hunter pursuing a grizzly bear that ends with a sexual punchline you won't see coming. The laughs extend to the fake names the killer puts on his credit cards, usually vintage sitcom characters like Sam Malone and Felix Unger, names that Gen Zers never recognize.

Swinton and Fassbender spar like the legends they are. You'll want more of them, but the killer needs to make a stop in Chicago to confront the client (Arliss Howard) who started it all. Fireworks follow, but not the kind you're thinking.

"The Killer" is a first for Fincher -- it's the one where he refuses to stick to a plan, letting shards of humanity throw him off his raw and riveting game. Don't expect a sunny redemption. Fincher and his killer share an affinity for loose ends hauntingly left untied. "The Killer" is too machine-tooled to warm your heart, but you can count on its chill to linger and haunt your dreams.

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‘The Killer’ Review: He’s a Deadly Bore

Michael Fassbender stars as a loquaciously dull hit man in David Fincher’s latest film about bloody exploits.

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By Manohla Dargis

David Fincher can’t get enough of that murderous stuff — his filmography bleedeth over with miscreants (“Alien 3”), home invaders (“Panic Room”) and multiple maniacs (“Seven,” “Zodiac,” “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” “Gone Girl”). During one of his periodic breaks from painting the big screen red, Fincher served as a producer and director on the Netflix show “Mindhunter,” another of his visually impeccable, morgue-cold creep-outs. This one was about F.B.I. agents profiling serial killers like Edmund Kemper, a ghoul whose silkily insinuating manner resonated more deeply than the show, which ended after two seasons.

“Mindhunter” was easier to admire than to love, which is habitually true of Fincher’s work and was certainly true of his last movie, “ Mank ,” an Old Hollywood exhumation about powerful people who kill dreams and souls. In Hobbesian terms, life in a Fincher film tends to be solitary and poor, nasty and brutish, if not necessarily short. That’s the case again in his most recent movie, “The Killer,” about a nameless hit man — played by Michael Fassbender — a chatty loner first seen waiting for a victim to show up. In time, the mark appears, the Killer shoots but misses, and spends the remainder of the story trying to clean up the mess.

“The Killer” is based on a French comic book with the same title written by Alexis Nolent (who goes by Matz) and illustrated by Luc Jacamon. The protagonist is an outwardly ordinary-looking hit man who’s as physically unassuming as he is inevitably nihilistic: Other people are awful, the world is hopeless, “we’re living on a pile of corpses,” etc. He quotes Christ and Kazantzakis, pals around with kindred villains, regularly has sex with balloon-breasted ladies but also spends a lot of time alone, which means the comic panels overflow with his loathing and insipid thoughts. What makes him ostensibly interesting isn’t his job or body count; what’s intriguing, at least before your eyes finally glaze over, is that he’s dull.

The idea of an anti-Bond type with an illegal license to kill is, yes, an idea, one that flickers weakly on the page amid a mass of genre clichés. What’s most distinctive about the comic is the contrast between its protagonist and Jacamon’s cinematic illustrations, with their rich hues, canted angles and interplay between realism and expressionism. You keep reading only to keep looking. Fincher’s visual approach in the movie is relatively muted by contrast. He bathes the screen with sulfurous yellow, throws in a few showy shots — an unblinking eye seen through a gun scope — and, as he likes to do, goes dark and then darker, as in one extended fight sequence that’s so dimly lit it sometimes hovers on the threshold of visibility.

Written by Andrew Kevin Walker (“Seven”), the movie ditches a lot of the comic’s gasbag observations, shaves the plot to the bone, folds in some pop-culture yuks (the Killer uses sitcom aliases) and takes a jab at WeWork. Fassbender’s character still prattles on a lot, mostly in voice-over, both when he’s on the job and off, but much of what he says is repetitive and on occasion near-affirmational. “Forbid empathy,” he murmurs. “Trust no one.” On occasion, he sounds as if he’s trying to convince himself or just settle his mind so he can focus on the violent task at hand; at other times, he sounds as if he’s dispensing avuncular advice to students of slaughter: “This is what it takes if you want to succeed.”

One problem with the movie is that without the Killer’s anti-humanist rants, his historical references and political entanglements, there isn’t much left other than Fincher’s virtuosity, Fassbender’s tamped-down charisma and the thorny pleasures of watching evil people commit evil with great finesse. What this Killer has are a lover (Sophie Charlotte), who’s merely a plot contrivance, a luxe beachfront house and a storage unit kitted out with the tools of his trade (guns, passports). What he doesn’t have is much of a personality or a code, a way of being that complicates the violence, as in the films of Jean-Pierre Melville and his admirers. So what is the Killer? Mostly, it seems, he is a way for Fincher to kill time.

After the first job in the movie goes bad, the Killer finds that he’s now a target, which adds a bit of tension and mystery as he dodges threats amid the bang-bangs — the gunfire is more polyrhythmic than the metronomic editing — and the splashy entrances and exits from the other generic types: the Lawyer (Charles Parnell), the Client (Arliss Howard), the Expert (Tilda Swinton), the Brute (Sala Baker). Throughout, Fassbender holds the center with his lissome, controlled physicality and near-unmodulated voice. The character is boring and so is this movie, but like the supremely skilled Fincher, who can’t help but make images that hold your gaze even as your mind wanders, Fassbender does keep you watching.

The Killer Rated R for ultraviolence. Running time: 1 hour 58 minutes. Watch on Netflix.

Manohla Dargis is the chief film critic of The Times, which she joined in 2004. She has an M.A. in cinema studies from New York University, and her work has been anthologized in several books. More about Manohla Dargis

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The Killer review: David Fincher's latest is as brutal and unfeeling as its central subject

As a hired killer, Michael Fassbender is chilling in a story that lacks a center.

Maureen Lee Lenker is a senior writer at Entertainment Weekly with over seven years of experience in the entertainment industry. An award-winning journalist, she's written for Turner Classic Movies, Ms. Magazine , The Hollywood Reporter , and more. She's worked at EW for six years covering film, TV, theater, music, and books. The author of EW's quarterly romance review column, "Hot Stuff," Maureen holds Master's degrees from both the University of Southern California and the University of Oxford. Her debut novel, It Happened One Fight , is now available. Follow her for all things related to classic Hollywood, musicals, the romance genre, and Bruce Springsteen.

David Fincher has never been one for sentiment. From Se7en to Zodiac to Netflix series Mindhunter , his work is interested in unpacking the darkest parts of our humanity with the cold precision of an ice pick. His latest The Killer, now streaming on Netflix, is no exception.

Based on Alexis Nolent and Luc Jacamon's graphic novel of the same name, The Killer follows its unnamed assassin as a botched job propels him into a vendetta that breaks his one rule: never make it personal. Michael Fassbender stars as the titular character, bringing the chilling brutality he so often possesses on screen to its most emotionally detached rendering yet. His assassin is a killing machine, a man whose patience, precision, and physical fitness have made him perfect for his job.

With a reptilian coldness, Fassbender infuses the "Killer" with an eerie stillness that underscores the character's lack of empathy and warmth. He's in fine physical form, flowing through complicated yoga poses that help establish this character's grounded-ness, which is belied by his sociopathic occupation.

Much of the film is conveyed in narration through voiceover, as we hear the thoughts in Fassbender's head. He is a man of few words, speaking only the bare minimum required to get through daily interactions. We watch him deliver dialogue on camera only a handful of times. It's effective in conveying his detachment, but by and large, it makes Andrew Kevin Walker's script far too verbose, telling instead of showing.

Through this voiceover, we learn the killer's rules, that doesn't believe in luck, karma, or justice. We repeatedly hear the mantra he recites to himself in the moments leading up to a kill, which includes the notion that "empathy is weakness." But when his partner is brutalized in an attempt to hunt him down, that goes out the window, as he seeks to mete out revenge on those responsible. He maintains his mantra, reciting it like a prayer, but it's clear to us that his inner monologue is a lie. There's no way this isn't personal.

Fincher revels in this juxtaposition, the ways in which this character moves from "I don't give a f---" to "f--- it." But it all feels entirely hollow, a revenge drama that wants us to root for, or at the least, engage with a sociopath who can't recognize the limits of his own life code or the capitalist web even he is caught in.

Because it is David Fincher, the action is unquestionably rendered exquisitely. Cinematographer Erik Messerschmidt, who has partnered with Fincher since Mindhunter, composes each frame of the movie with as much meticulousness as the protagonist does his kills. They evoke the exactitude of our central character with rigor, and the composition is extraordinary. But it's all technique, no feeling, which is deliberate, but not successful.

The most interesting scene comes late in the film between Fassbender and Tilda Swinton 's "the Expert" over an elegant meal. These actors are similar creatures, their piercing unusualness their most defining aspect on screen. Facing off against each other here, it's amusing to watch Swinton's Expert try to exhibit more feeling than Fassbender's Killer. It requires palpable effort. Unlike his ascetic approach, she's found ways to suck the marrow from life and is the only one able to emphasize his own hypocrisy.

The central conceit of The Killer is an intriguing one, but nothing here ever hangs together. Structured into "chapters," the film plays out in brutal vignettes as the Killer executes the various jobs he's assigned to himself. There's an appeal in watching him orchestrate things. We can find humor in his sitcom-inspired aliases and some degree of admiration in his extreme competence and preparation. But we don't ever break through the veneer of his psyche, despite being asked to go on this journey with him.

The film doesn't need to have a Code-era comeuppance or morality (indeed, the film's only moral conjecture seems to be that ethics are irrelevant in late-stage capitalism), but it does need stakes, a reason to invest in this character's mission beyond being impressed by his skill.

It's clear that Fincher wanted the entire picture to carry the emotional detachment of its main character, to convey that in everything from a spare shooting style to its white and gray color palette to the killer's limited wardrobe. But The Killer is about a man so shrouded in denial that nothing can puncture it. Watching that from arm's length is hardly riveting. Fincher is adept at excoriating the darkness of the human soul, but he's missed his mark with a character so blindly determined to prove he doesn't have one. Grade: C+

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'The Killer' review: Michael Fassbender is a flawed hitman in David Fincher's fun Netflix film

It’s not always easy to relate to David Fincher's characters, be it Gary Oldman as the screenwriter of the greatest film ever in "Mank," the fist-flinging members of "Fight Club" or the sinful serial murderers of "Se7en" and "Zodiac." On the contrary, the title character of Fincher’s new action thriller “The Killer” definitely seems like one of us, even with all sorts of blood on his hands.

As stylish and cool as the director’s other high-class cinematic efforts, the pulpy goodness of “The Killer” (★★★ out of four; rated R; in theaters now and streaming Friday on Netflix ) is straight up more fun than a lot of Fincher outings, thanks to a dark sense of humor and Michael Fassbender's enjoyably droll assassin. 

Based on a French comic book series, the slick modern noir upends expectations right from the start: Staking out a hotel room for his latest hit in Paris, Fassbender’s unnamed hitman does yoga and goes through his methodical daily life, waiting for the right time to aim and fire through a window with uncanny precision. That said, the gig is starting to wear on him. “It’s amazing how physically exhausting it is to do nothing,” he says via voiceover, preparing to do his wet work from a WeWork.

But what seems like it's going to be an extremely heady prestige assassin drama takes a nifty stylistic swerve toward the absurd, and an errant bullet turns the killer’s life completely upside down. After missing his target, the assassin tries to get out of town fast and to his safe house in the Dominican Republic, though it’s anything but a welcome sanctuary. He discovers that his handler (Charles Parnell), in an effort to smooth things over with the mysterious client, sent another crew of baddies to tie up loose ends and put the killer’s girlfriend (Sophie Charlotte) in the hospital.

Various people are trying to take him out, yet the killer's existential crisis is mostly internal, which Fassbender navigates with watchable steeliness. And there are no James Bond tuxes in sight here: This killer rocks bucket hats and Hawaiian shirts, blending into various environments and crowds using a series of fake identities based on old sitcom characters (for example, “Archibald Bunker”).

However, as the killer hops from New Orleans to Florida to Chicago to take out everybody involved in the attack on his beloved, he struggles mightily, increasingly off his game the more he's forced to depart from his predictable work life. The dude nevertheless is seriously good at living up to the movie title (and pretty handy with a nail gun).

So is Fincher, who doesn’t make bad movies. (“Zodiac,” Se7en,” “The Social Network” and “Mank” all speak for themselves, and even his debut “Alien 3” is pretty darn good in its own right.) It’s OK that “The Killer” probably won’t be a best picture contender. This is a master filmmaker putting his signature spin on a gleefully oddball B-movie – even Oscar winner Tilda Swinton seems to have a ball in a supporting role, making a whole meal out of telling a racy joke as a rival hit woman.

Fincher’s top-notch filmmaking raises the fairly straightforward narrative, and “The Killer” is aces with how it utilizes sound. The killer’s constant playing of The Smiths adds a sonic sense of nihilism to his character, while frequent Fincher collaborators Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ churning electronic score is symbolic of the main character’s roiling, stressed-out inner turmoil that belies his stoic exterior.

Fassbender’s cold-blooded protagonist isn’t presented as a hero or even an antihero that Fincher asks you to get behind. Instead, in this world of various people doing bad things and making worse decisions, he’s a flawed everyman who botches an assignment, faces some consequences and has to figure out the best way to remedy the situation. Sure, his is a heightened existence full of attack dogs and sniper rifles, yet he also has to deal with the absolutely mundane experience of sitting in the middle row of a crowded commercial flight.

That’s a “Killer” premise that most folks, even those who aren’t ruthless assassins, can understand.

Emma Stone, Nathan Fielder and Benny Safdie’s ‘The Curse’ Is the Most Uncomfortable Show of the Year: TV Review

By Alison Herman

Alison Herman

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To witness Emma Stone ’s latest leading role in a TV series, a gripping portrait of self-delusion on par with any of her Oscar-honored star turns, viewers will have to pay a hefty toll: They’ll have to sit through a predictably agonizing odyssey from two auteurs who’ve already mastered the art of making audiences squirm. Here, the creators combine their talents to reach new depths of discomfort.

“The Curse” is also a coming together of two shared sensibilities. Alongside his brother Josh, Safdie has directed a series of films (“Good Time,” “Uncut Gems”) centered on unsavory protagonists who drive their own undoing, often featuring first-time actors. For his part, Fielder has made a career of blurring the lines between reality and fiction through shows like “The Rehearsal” and “Nathan for You,” unraveling onion-like layers of alienation through his own, intentionally off-putting persona. “The Curse” opens new frontiers for each artist, bringing Fielder into scripted storytelling and Safdie into television, as well as away from New York, his hometown and preferred filming location. Its creators’ themes and M.O. are nonetheless familiar — a promise to fans, and a warning to the cringe-averse.

An architect who builds mirrored, self-sufficient houses with a suspicious resemblance to the work of artist Doug Aitken, Whitney has constructed her entire identity in opposition to her parents (Constance Shulman and Corbin Bernsen), shameless capitalists who shrug off the label of “slumlord.” Whitney is convinced she can make money, win design awards, benefit the environment and help the local community, an untenable vision she’s recruited Asher to make work on the business side. But cracks quickly start to show in this telegenic facade. While filming the pilot, Asher and Dougie attempt to stage a heartwarming moment for the cameras by having Asher offer money to a child (Hikmah Warsame). When Asher retracts his gift once Dougie has the shot, his angry ex-beneficiary declares: “I curse you.”

For a professional comedian, Fielder is disturbingly good at creating congenitally unfunny characters. (At one point, Asher enrolls in a corporate comedy class as an unsuccessful bid to improve his on-camera appeal.) In “The Curse,” there’s no distancing mechanism that assures us Fielder, the performer, is simply doing a bit for our entertainment. We’re completely immersed in this fictional reality, one where Asher’s crippling social ineptitude is only magnified by his wife’s charisma. Movie stars have a mixed track record in their influx to TV, but Stone’s inherent charm makes for a pointed contrast with Fielder’s deliberate lack thereof. Whitney is a narcissistic monster in her own right, though she’s better at creating the illusion of empathy for the camera.

Completing this unholy trinity, Safdie sports a Tommy Wiseau-like wig as Dougie works to destabilize what’s already an unhealthy dynamic. (A sex scene in the premiere, preceded by a full-frontal shot of Fielder sporting a micropenis, illuminates the insecurity and lack of open communication dragging down a marriage that’s just a year old.) A former bully of Asher’s from Jewish summer camp, Dougie acts as a kind of Faustian figure, playing Asher and Whitney against each other in a bid to create the most compelling product possible. Whitney and Asher have bet their whole, over-leveraged house of cards — shockingly, the economics of chic designer homes in an under-resourced area don’t quite pencil out — on their show’s success, but Dougie, too, needs a win. Before the events of “The Curse,” a drunken car accident destroyed the producer’s personal and professional lives, a reckoning for which he still refuses to take responsibility.

The first episode of “The Curse” will premiere on Paramount+ on Nov. 10 and Showtime on Nov. 12, with subsequent episodes streaming weekly on Fridays and airing on Sundays.

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Facing the Enemy (2001)

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