If your shadowy underworld employer sent a pair of incompetent hitmen after you following a
botched assassination job, what would you do? In this line of work, you’re either
the triggerman, or the target, and as our hero’s about to find out, things
can change in the blink of an eye. The only good news is that the bad guy’s won’t be
sending their best, because that would be him, and he’s not about to take their
attempt at forced retirement lying down. I’m going to break down the mistakes made, what you should do, and how to
beat the AGENCY in THE KILLER. John Doe has it all planned out: the perfect
disguise, the perfect vantage point, and the perfect rifle. All that’s missing
is the mark. Just a part of the job, he thinks to himself, but after a week of living
off McMuffin’s with no sign of the target, our expert assassin finds himself getting antsy.
He even thinks about calling the whole thing off. However, just as our man’s about to pick up
his ball and bounce, he spots movement in the subject’s apartment. Sure enough, a security
detail marches in and secures the interior, followed by an older-looking
gentleman, and he’s not alone. Seeing his opportunity, John quickly assembles
his breakdown bolty and lines up a shot. At this range, the subsonic round will hit
with the energy of a handgun, but that should still be plenty so long as he
can put it in just the right spot. Bullseye. Teach her for gold digging. Hang on. I’m being told the target was
actually the old dude, although given the way John kept looking back at her, I could
have sworn it was the other way around. Well, in that case, this was a colossal
screw up on his part. Seriously, dude passed up on not just one but two perfect
shots because he couldn’t hold a sight picture on a bench rest. Remember CAPTAIN PHILIPS?
See, that’s what a real marksman is capable of. Granted, they were a bit closer, but
their targets were rocking around on a boat. Oh, but muh heartbeat too fast. Please. Carlos
Hathcock didn’t need a Fitbit and neither did you. If anything he was just giving himself white
coat syndrome by constantly checking back on it. Besides, it’s not like we were setting
a distance record here. We’re talking less than a hundred yards, and the fact the bullet
was traveling subsonic doesn’t mean a thing. At roughly 1050 feet per second, it would clear
that gap in less than three tenths of a second, which wouldn’t be a problem as long
as no one walked right in front of it. Wait, what’s that, the person that was
nearly blocking your shot to begin with got in the way and blocked your shot? Aw,
man, how could this have happened? Yeah, that’s probably why you should have
squeezed trig the instant she stepped out of the way instead of giving her
time to work through her routine. That said, if we already knew we
needed six years to work a two-stage, we should have just waited until she
wasn’t anywhere near him. I mean, we already spent a week here. What’s another
ten minutes? I’m sure between fooling around with her and whatever else he had planned for
this evening, we would have had another chance. And if not, oh, well. John was already this
close to canceling the operation anyway, which means he knew for a fact the world
wouldn’t end if this guy doesn’t die today. Oh, that is, unless he almost dies today,
in which case he’ll almost certainly turtle up somewhere hard to reach for who knows
how long, possibly even the rest of his life. It’s not every day you watch a hooker get
gunned down right in front of you, after all. Ultimately, this is exactly what happens, as
John fails to land a follow up shot in time to correct his mistake. Should
have gone with the semi-auto, bro. Or maybe instead of pulling your head
from the scope for that reaction shot, you could have just racked another one into
battery and handled business like a professional. Oh, well, nobody’s perfect, right? This
is pretty much what our guy tells his extra p*ssed-off handler before planes,
trains, and automobiling his way back to his not-so-secret hideout in
the Dominican Republic. However, just as he’s about to cross over the property
line, he notices a pile of cigarette butts beside a pair of footprints leading into the
compound, and that can only mean one thing. Grabbing the Glock from his glove box,
John cuts through the forest over to… dude, hang on, that’s your house? Yeah, no
crap the agency was able to track you down. You live in a beach front
mansion in a third-world country. If 4Chan can find a single flag
out in the middle of nowhere, I’m sure an international assassination company
with untold technological resources could find a place like this. And you know who else
could, the United States government, who also just so happens to have an extradition
treaty with the Dominican Republic it could use to lock you up whenever your continued
existence becomes politically inconvenient. Obviously, the list of non-extradition
countries where John wouldn’t stick out like a sore thumb isn’t very long,
but it’s probably worth exploring, especially since the US is exactly where
we’ll be headed here in just a bit. Getting back to the house, John finds it
empty, which is still a bad sign considering he’s supposed to be married, or at least,
he was. Judging by all the blood everywhere, I’d say there’s a good chance
he might be back on the market. And yet by some miracle, that’s not the
case. After heading down to a local hospital, our guy finds his lovely wife in a critical
condition, but despite her numerous injuries, she was still coherent enough at one point to
tell her brother what went down. According to his retelling of the incident, there
were two intruders, a man and a woman, and it was clear they weren’t there to rob
the place. Evidently, the pair attempted to interrogate her for information about
her husband, but the conversation was cut short after she managed to stab the male
attacker in the leg and flee into the forest. Yeah, seems a little too easy if you ask
me. Like, I’m sure they didn’t intend for one of them to get stabbed, but think about it.
You’re hunting a human chameleon with the means and the know-how to effectively vanish off
the face of the earth at a moment’s notice. Instead of actively hunting him down only to
constantly be one step behind, why not put his boo thang in the hospital to try and draw him
out into the open. That’s what I’d do, anyway. As a matter of fact, I’m surprised he’d even
show up here given what an obvious play that is. I mean, this place can’t even keep the lights
for Christ’s sake. It’s not like they can afford a security detail. At the very least, you’d think
he’d wait until she was transferred to the private hospital the doctor mentioned before coming
to see her, and even then… “Sorry, babe, but I’m kind of a big deal, and right now the worst
people in the world want my head on a pike, so, ya know, get well soon.” After all, what else can
you really expect when you’re married to Agent 47? Anyway, there’s one last thing
I forgot to mention. Apparently, she saw the intruders leaving in a green car with
a light on it like a taxi, which as it turns out, is exactly what it was. That’s right, the
highly trained international assassins took a cab to the place where they intended
to murder somebody. This is, of course, going to come back to haunt everyone involved in a
major way, starting with the taxi driver himself. After asking nicely over at the cab company,
John gains access to their records and finds the specific driver that went to and
from his house. The following day, he comes back to stakeout the
place until he spots the mark, at which point he tails the man to his first
stop and enters the cab while posing as a fare. Obviously, Leo couldn’t have known today was about
to go sideways, but even after the gun comes out, he still has a chance to turn things around. Fans
of the channel will know that I’m a big proponent of always wearing your seatbelt while in a moving
vehicle, which as you can see, John doesn’t seem all that worried about. In that case, our driver
could jerk the wheel into oncoming traffic, or even one of these telephone poles to buy himself
a chance to escape while the would-be assassin is busy peeling his face off that divider. Sure, it’s
no slam dunk, and he could easily get shot in the process, but like it or not he has to do something
here, or this is guaranteed to be a one-way trip. Fact is, no one who can afford a
silencer is out robbing taxicabs, and even if Leo is worldly enough to recognize
that it’s actually an oversized muzzle brake, once the gunman starts pumping him for
information on the strange fare he had recently, it should be clear he’s gotten himself involved
in some seriously messed up crap, the kind that leaves behind a lot of body bags. Furthermore,
regardless of whether he’s actually the one driving, right now the attacker is taking him to
a second location, and you know what that means. I take it that’s a “no.” Oh, well,
it was a boring conversation anyway. All our “hero” managed to extract before
raising the homicide rate was a description of the attackers, some big, jacked dude and a Q-tip
looking chick, as well as the fact they went back to the airport after leaving his property. Wait,
they just left after all that? What a massive, wasted opportunity. Like I said before, the
easiest thing to do would have been to simply post up in or around the hospital while waiting
for their target to come check on his wife. You’re telling me they just shrugged their shoulders and
gave up once she got away? Like I get that one of them was wounded and all that, but still,
that doesn’t mean they both had to leave, and it would even be better for opsec purposes
if they came and went separately, anyway. Well, whatever, the important thing is that we
have a degree confirmation it was really just the two of them and that they seemingly
fled the country when it was all over, although I’d still be looking over my
shoulder until I knew that for sure. In any case, John’s next move is to hop on
a plane to New Orleans, where he makes a stop at one of his tactical storage units before
heading into the city to meet with an old friend. Piggy backing off a FedEx driver, he gains
access to the office of one Professor Hodges, which just goes to show you that no amount of
passive security will save you if there’s no one around to actively enforce it. All Hodges had
to do was hire a single no-neck security guard to stand by the door and John’s social engineering
attempt would have fallen flat on its face. Also, side note, it wasn’t until I watched
through this again that I realized it was actually John who sent this particular package
while still in the Dominican Republic. Gotta say, that’s pretty clever. Not only did this
guarantee there would be a delivery, the tracking info let him know roughly when to expect
it. All you contract killers out there, take note. Ultimately, John’s little ruse catches Hodges
completely off guard, which is pretty crazy once you realize this guy’s the one who’s
been managing his particular set of skills, as well as that not-so-dynamic duo sent to rub
him out for blowing the last job. In that case, he would have to have known John was
still alive and likely very p*ssed off, so I gotta wonder why he didn’t think
to beef up his security measures beyond a pair of locking glass doors in anticipation of
a meeting just like this one. At the very least, he should have brought on a personal
assistant that can handle a firearm. Right here while John almost has his back turned,
as long as Dolores had a sub-two-second draw to first shot, the standard benchmark for
concealed carriers in the United States, there’s no possible way John could
react in time to stop her from blowing his brains out. Doesn’t matter how
good you are; you can’t beat biology. Of course, once he has her tie them
both up, it’s pretty much game over, which is why I honestly can’t believe
Hodges would allow it to happen. I mean, the God damn movie’s called THE KILLER, for
effs’s sake. You think he came by for an apology? Well, either way, Hodges doesn’t offer one. He
pretty much says something to the effect of “no offense, but with all due respect, it’s
nothing personal,” along with a few other disingenuous platitudes people really love
to hear when you screw them over. Naturally, this has a profound effect on John, and convinces
him to reevaluate his homicidal intentions. In terms of information, the only thing John
learned from their conversation before letting the air in is that it was the angry client from
the last job who ordered the hit. Fortunately, Hodges wasn’t the only one running
this operation, and all Dolores asks in exchange for access to Hodge’s
old rolodex is that she doesn’t get disappeared so her family can cash
in on her life insurance. Haha, okay. At any rate, the pair loads Hodges into the
recycling bin and heads for the elevator, where Dolores passes up on a prime opportunity to
self-rescue, or at least attempt it anyway. Here we see John wedging himself into the back corner
behind the can while Dolores’s path to the door is unobstructed. Seeing this, once the elevator
stopped to allow the other two passengers onboard, I would have bolted for the opening just as
the doors were about to close while calling him a murderer. At that point, John would
have to either blow his cover by drawing his gun or chasing us down, or play it off like
we’re crazy and then vanish for a while. My bet is on the latter, as he’d otherwise
have to waste these two corpos as well, and that’d draw quite a bit of unwanted
attention onto his little revenge quest. Heck, at minimum, I’d expect her to try mouthing
“help me” to one of the other passengers, or something. Seriously, why would you not
risk your own life to save your own life, especially when you know it’s curtains the
second you enter this guy’s van? Besides, if all she wants is for her body to be
found, earning herself a public execution by fighting back in front of others
will almost certainly accomplish that. Ultimately, Delores’s holds up her
end of the bargain and takes John back to her house to find the info,
after which he holds up his end. What a nice guy. Now armed with the assassins’ contact info,
John road trips over to Tampa to visit the hit squad’s male half. Here we find the
brute, henceforth known as Florida Man, just as he and his buddies are heading
out to the local casino-slash-gentlemen’s club to lose all their cash as quickly as
possible. For real though, I don’t think you could literally burn money as quickly
as you could spend it in a place like this. After what I can only imagine
was about twenty-five minutes, the gang emerges from the club and heads back
to Florida Man’s to drop him off for the night, thereby lending our guy the perfect opportunity to
strike, or so he thinks. Whatever the case, John begins his assault by incapacitating the target’s
pitbull with ZQuil-laced hamburger, which is exactly what someone will do if they’re determined
to break in, only they’ll probably use antifreeze. Not saying your guard dog is useless by any
means, but you should probably supplement your home security with a quality alarm system if
you can afford it, and Florida Man most certainly can. Too bad he still doesn’t lock his front
door. That’s right, the international assassin who just recently botched an assassination
attempt on another international assassin doesn’t lock his doors at night. Then again,
maybe he was hoping for a surprise visit. I guess it figures this couldn’t be easy. Still, John’s lucky Florida Man wasn’t armed right
there, but like, why the heck not? Once again, you just got home from brutally torturing the wife of
someone who kills people for a living. I’d have a gun waiting in every room for this exact scenario.
I mean, I already do, but ya know, a bigger one. And even if Hodges didn’t bother
mentioning John’s occupation, which would have been incredibly
stupid on his part if that were true, Florida Man should have at least been aware of
the fact that failing an assassination attempt could very well make him a target himself, in
which case, he shouldn’t even be here right now. But alas, here we are, and after a long
and over the top, PUNISHER-esque fight sequence wherein both men would have easily
beaten each other to death three times over, Florida Man finally decides to retrieve a firearm, which is, of course, a stock standard
19-by-God-11, because two world wars. Unfortunately for him, no amount of
stopping power in the world can save you if you’re still going to fall
for the oldest trick in the book, giving John a chance to scoop up his Glock
and settle this matter once and for all. Guess, they’ll let just about
anyone be an assassin these days. And, that definitely goes both ways here because
John’s whole plan was downright sloppy from the very beginning. What, you’re just going to stage
a basic burglary on someone you know is almost certainly armed and extremely dangerous? Not only
would that be giving him the home-court advantage, John didn’t even stake the place out long enough
to make sure the dude actually lived alone. Imagine going through all that hand-to-hand BS
just to get popped in the back by the mark’s live-in girlfriend, or elderly
mother, or whoever. Point is, John never should have set foot in that
place, especially after hearing the chime on the door sensor go off. That’s probably
what gave him away in the first place. Instead, I would have grabbed another rifle
setup like the one we had back in Paris and post up across the street inside the rental car. From
there, we could either wait until he comes outside on his own or give him a reason to poke his head
out. As we saw earlier, Florida Man works out in his front yard, which would be the perfect time to
nail him. Otherwise, I’d shoot out a window on one of his cars to set off the alarm. Dude doesn’t
strike me as the kind of guy to leave it to the cops, so I’d say there’s a pretty good chance
we’d catch him waving that .45 around while still in his underwear. Bonus points if we can zap him
through the glass as he’s looking out the window. And before you say the alarm would draw too much
attention, let me ask you this. When was the last time you went and checked out a car alarm that
wasn’t your own? Ninety-nine point nine percent of people would hit the button on their FOB and go
right back to bed without even looking. In fact, the biggest problem with this plan is
that Florida Man probably would too, in which case we wait a few seconds and
shoot out another window to set it off again. Of course, ham fisted though it might have been,
John’s approach did still get the job done, and after dodging the doggo and setting the place
on fire, he hops on a plane to Laguardia to cross off Thing 2. Eventually, we find ourselves
in a peaceful New York suburb, where we meet THE EXPERT, or at least that’s what they call
her in the credits. Ha, we’ll see about that. For now, I’m just going to call her
Q-tip because it turns out the cab driver’s description was pretty much
spot on. Ya know, for an assassin, she really doesn’t make much of an attempt
at blending in, does she? Like I get nothing about her appearance necessarily screams “murder
for hire,” but in any kind of covert operation, the key to staying alive is to remain as
unremarkable as possible. Case in point, John was able to identify her immediately based solely
on a brief description of her unusual hair style. All that’s left to do now
is put her in the ground, and just like before, John
opts for the direct approach. Off-body carry strikes again.
That’s some expert, alright. Seriously though, a hundred-dollar appendix
holster and this would be a drastically different conversation. Granted, it’d be more
INGLORIOUS BASTERDS than Han versus Greedo, but I’ll take a gunfight over
a shooting any day of the week. At the very least, you’d think she’d react a
bit more decisively to someone grabbing at her purse knowing her one and only firearm
was rattling around inside. Even then, it probably wouldn’t do her much
good considering she’d still have to fish it out of there faster
than John could draw his own. Still, Q-Tip’s not hosed yet. After all,
it’s pretty obvious she knows the staff well, to the point they automatically bring out
food based on what they think she might like, and it doesn’t exactly take Inspector Callaghan
to realize something’s wrong. Think about it. Some dude with a screwed up face sits down
across from her, doesn’t order anything, and suddenly she’s lost her appetite. Sure,
it’s not enough to call the cops by itself, but I gotta believe the waiter is clocking him. In that case, her best, and really her only
option at this point is to behave wildly out of character in the hope that someone gets the
hint, like ordering something on the menu they know she doesn’t like, or is allergic to,
or referring to the head chef by the wrong name when she’s probably known him for years.
Better yet, she could ask for the check and tip nine dollars and eleven cents. Yes, these
are all extremely subtle things that could potentially go unnoticed, but that’s precisely
the point. As Cotton Swab herself points out, John could waste her right here in front of God
and everybody and likely still vanish without a trace, meaning the only thing keeping her
alive right now is purposeful compliance. However, instead of doing literally anything
to signal the wait staff, or fighting back, or simply stalling for as much time as
possible on the off chance someone in the restaurant randomly develops telepathy,
Q-tip opts to accompany John out to a dark, secluded walkway right by the riverbank. Yeah,
it doesn’t get much more obvious than that, although the lady assassin’s attempt
at deception certainly comes close. Well, I can’t blame her for trying. That said, she would have had a better chance
of surviving if she went for the water instead, not a good chance, but a better one. She still
likely would have gotten shot a couple times, and hypothermia’s guaranteed, but
it beats serving up a headshot, especially given the way John was deliberately
hanging back to keep his gun out of reach. Well, that’s it for Murder, Inc.;
however, we’re not done just yet. John still has one last stop to make before
his revenge arc is complete. To that end, he boards yet another plane bound for
Chicago, Illinois, home to one H. Claybourne, the very client who ordered the botched job
back in France as well as the dismal failure in the Dominican Republic. It really
is hard to find good help these days. At any rate, through a combination of
social engineering, slight of hand, and a $20 Amazon FOB copier that you too can
purchase for your own nefarious purposes, John gains entry to Claybourne’s lavished
penthouse apartment. Basically, the dude made his building so smart he made it stupid, which
is why it only took a single afternoon of John following him around at the gym to bring
us to the final confrontation. Seriously, one dumb deadbolt and our guy would still be
scratching his head in the hallway right now. So, Hodges got nailed, Dolores got her
neck snapped, and the driver, the expert, and the brute all caught a bullet. Knowing
all that, one can only imagine the horrors awaiting the man who set this whole mess
into motion. Well maybe. According to John, it all depends on what happens during their
meeting, starting with Claybourne’s explanation. Somehow I doubt it. However, it appears as though John is
totally buying Claybourne’s story about being upsold on a so-called “insurance
policy” by the late Hodges. Moreover, the fact Claybourne seemingly has no idea
why John would even break into his home in the first place convinces him the billionaire
murderer by proxy has no idea what went down in the Dominican Republic, let alone
that John’s wife got dragged into it. And to that I say, “who the freak cares?!” John’s killed countless people for less,
I’m sure, and he’s seriously going to let this slimeball walk because he claims ignorance?
Oh, no it’s totally fine, because John totally threatened him really super good and so he’ll
know to back off, as if that even makes sense. I mean, think about it. Let’s say
Claybourne really had no idea who John was or why he was there, well
he certainly does now. What’s more, now he has even more of a reason to want
the man dead. Dude, literally held him at gunpoint and threatened to poison his favorite
coffee mug with freaking radium or whatever. If I’m Claybourne right now, there’s absolutely
no way I’d be able to sleep until I had this guy’s head in a mason jar, and I would immediately seek
out another contract agency to make that happen, ideally one staffed by people who
don’t take taxis to target locations, or leave their doors unlocked at night, or keep
their guns sitting loose inside of handbags. And, yes, I heard John’s half-baked
social commentary about how the police investigate crimes in proportion
to the victim’s net worth. Well, that mark back in France wasn’t exactly
begging for change, now was he? Point being, there’s absolutely no legitimate reason why John
should let this guy live, and yet he totally does. Boy, it’s a good thing he left his gravely injured wife unprotected hundreds of miles
away to sort this out. I need a drink. In the end, John and his wife will get
to enjoy retirement in the same tropical paradise wherein she was nearly murdered, and
everyone involved in the assassination attempt got what was coming to them, except for the
one guy who was truly responsible for it. That said, had John followed our
advice, he probably wouldn’t have found himself in this mess in the first
place, and once things went south, we could have helped him avoid a serious
arse kicking at the hands of Florida Man, as well as stopped him from ultimately dooming
himself and his wife by sparing Claybourne. For that reason, I think THE KILLER was Beaten. Moral of the story, always tie up loose ends.
