The Killer (2024 film)

The Killer
The Killer
	Release poster
Directed by	John Woo
Screenplay by	Brian Helgeland; Josh Campbell; Matt Stuecken;
Based on	The Killer; by John Woo
Produced by	Charles Roven; Alex Gartner; John Woo; Lori Tilkin deFelice;
Starring	Nathalie Emmanuel; Omar Sy; Sam Worthington; Diana Silvers; Eric Cantona; Saïd Taghmaoui;
Cinematography	Mauro Fiore
Edited by	Zach Staenberg
Music by	Marco Beltrami
Production; companies	Universal Pictures; A Better Tomorrow Films; Atlas Entertainment;
Distributed by	Peacock
Release date	August 23, 2024;
Running time	126 minutes
Country	United States
Languages	English; French

The Killer is a 2024 American action thriller film directed by John Woo. It is a remake of Woo's 1989 film. The film stars Nathalie Emmanuel, Omar Sy, Sam Worthington, Diana Silvers, Eric Cantona, and Saïd Taghmaoui.

It was released in the United States by the streaming service Peacock on August 23, 2024.

Plot

Zee is a professional hit woman living in Paris who is regularly employed by Finn, an Irishman working for crime lord Jules Gobert, to eliminate Gobert's rivals in the drug business. Her violent lifestyle has left her with few things to enjoy, including the friendship of an old high-class tailor named Tessier, who provides her with disguises for her jobs, keeping a goldfish, and solving crossword puzzles. In the underworld, she has become infamous as the Queen of the Dead.

Finn contracts Zee to kill the members of a drug gang from Marseille partying in a local nightclub. Zee eliminates the gangsters, but a young American singer named Jenn Clark, who gets embroiled in the carnage, hits the back of her head in a fall, causing her to go blind. Although obliged to kill all present, Zee takes pity on Jenn and spares her. Upon learning this, Finn sends her to the hospital Jenn is kept in to finish the job. At about the same time, a police inspector named Sey and his partner Jax try to arrest Jenn's drug-dealing boyfriend "Coco", but Coco escapes, injures Jax and takes a hostage, forcing Sey to kill him. At the time of his death, Coco was listening to a demo recording of one of Jenn's songs, leading Sey onto her trail.

Posing as a vice-consul from the US embassy, Zee gains access to Jenn's room and prepares to kill her. Just then Sey enters to take Jenn's statement about the assassination, but due to her traumatic shock, Jenn remembers little. Zee aborts her assassination attempt, but Sey becomes suspicious of her. He also connects Gobert to a recent theft of a large load of heroin from Arabian prince Majeb Bin Faheem, who is dealing with Gobert. However, his investigations are stymied by his superiors, who fear its impact on their careers, especially since some of the gangsters involved in both crimes were dirty cops working for Gobert. Additionally, it is revealed that Finn is responsible for the heroin theft since he intends to corner the Paris drug market for himself.

Before Finn's thugs can assassinate Jenn at the hospital, Zee arrives to take her to safety. During the resulting shootout, Zee and Sey, who was visiting Jax, briefly meet face-to-face before Zee escapes and takes Jenn to her apartment. After Jenn identifies Zee as the killer from the night club, she confesses that she and Coco have stolen Bin Faheem's heroin shipment from its original thieves and taken it to a hideout somewhere in Paris. Zee meets with Finn in their usual meeting place, an abandoned church, and lies to him that she has eliminated Jenn, but Finn later learns the truth. Sey tracks Zee down and has her arrested, and while questioning her, he learns that she was involved in one of his earlier cases against another drug dealer, thereby saving his life. Zee escapes custody, only to find that Jenn has been kidnapped by Finn's men, and learns from Tessier that he was coerced by a cop to inform him when Zee contacts him.

Gobert demands of Finn to have Zee assassinate Bin Faheem for his failure to deliver, but Finn has Gobert killed instead. Then he arranges for Sey to be framed, forcing him to go into hiding, and tasks Zee with eliminating him, promising her and Jenn's freedom in return. However, when Zee sees Sey meeting Jax at the appointed place and one of Finn's assassins waiting to kill her after her hit, she realizes the set-up, kills the assassin, exposes Jax as being on Finn's take, and teams up with Sey to bring Finn down. They retrieve the stolen heroin and arrange an exchange of the drugs for Jenn at the church.

The meeting results in a violent fight between Zee, Sey and Finn and his assassins, during which course the drugs are destroyed by an explosive charge set by Sey and Jenn recovers her sight. As Finn prepares to kill Zee, she distracts him with a silly question, allowing Sey to slide her a gun which she uses to shoot Finn. After secretly watching Jenn being reunited with her mother, she calls Sey, telling him that she is planning to change her life, and they share a light-hearted goodbye.

Cast

Nathalie Emmanuel as Zee
Omar Sy as Sey
Sam Worthington as Finn
Diana Silvers as Jenn Clark
Saïd Taghmaoui as Prince Majeb Bin Faheem
Angeles Woo as Chi Mai
Eric Cantona as Jules Gobert
Tchéky Karyo as Tessier
Grégory Montel as Jax
Hugo Diego Garcia as Coco
Michaël Erpelding as Serge
Aurélia Agel as Juliet

Production

In 1992, American filmmaker Walter Hill and David Giler wrote a screenplay for Tri-Star Pictures titled The Killer that was dated 6 April 1992.^[1] The press release for this remake stated the script was written for actors Richard Gere and Denzel Washington.^[1] In June 1992, it was announced Walter Hill and Giler were writing a script titled Hong Kong based on The Killer with Hill directing.^[2] The producers had difficulty with the relationship between the two main characters in the script as they felt that American audiences would interpret it as a homoerotic one. Producer Terence Chang, who worked with Woo on several productions, suggested to the American producers to have Hong Kong actress Michelle Yeoh play the role of the police officer to resolve any homoerotic reading of the film.^[3] A year later, screenwriters Jim Cash and Jack Epps, Jr. were hired by producers Charles Roven and Robert Cavallo to write a screenplay based on The Killer for Tristar, writing a third draft of the script dated on 23 August 1993 which featured a story of a Caucasian hitman living in Hong Kong. This screenplay moved the focus from the pairing of the hitman and the police detective characters to the characters of a blinded nightclub singer and the hitman.^[4]

In October 2007, The Hollywood Reporter announced that a remake of The Killer was announced with Korean-American director John H. Lee directing. The remake would take place in Los Angeles's Koreatown, Chinatown, and South Central. Lee named The Killer as one of his favorite films and said he was excited to make his own version of the film.^[5] Lee's version was set to be produced by Woo, and star Jung Woo-sung and shot in 3D.^[6] Seven Stars Film Studios was slated to finance the production with a screenplay by Josh Campbell.^[7] Sarah Li was initially cast to play the role of the blind singer.^[7] Woo spoke about the remake in October 2015, stating that Lee's film was in development for some time and Lee eventually took on other projects.^[8] Woo commented in 2015 that he would return to Hollywood after filming Manhunt (2017) in order to make an American adaptation of The Killer.^[8] Universal Pictures was announced to be developing the film with a script written by Eran Creevy based on drafts by Josh Campbell and Matt Stuecken, with additional contributions by Brian Helgeland.^[9] Actress Lupita Nyong'o had been cast for the lead role.^[9] Woo said that filming would begin in January 2019.^[10] About the decision to flip both the gender and race of the lead, Nyong'o remarked that she "did not see it coming, either", stating that she had received, read and liked the script without having seen the original movie.^[11] However, Woo told Deadline in November 2019 that Nyong'o had left the film due to scheduling conflicts as a result of a script rewrite.^[12] In May 2022, it was announced that the film would be directed by Woo, produced by Universal, and released exclusively on Peacock.^[13] In August 2022, Universal announced that Omar Sy would lead the film as the cop character.^[14] In March 2023, Nathalie Emmanuel was cast in the lead role.^[15] Woo returned to work on The Killer following a multi-month hiatus on shooting the film in Paris due to the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike.^[16]

Release

The film was released on Peacock on August 23, 2024.^[17]

Reception

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 56% of 57 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 5.8/10. The website's consensus reads: "John Woo recaptures some of his legendary action bravura in this gallic reimagining of his very own The Killer, although the kinetic set pieces don't quite compensate for the overall lack of personality."^[18] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 60 out of 100, based on 18 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.^[19]