Charlize Theron Will Save You

Brandon Flowers stepped away from The Killers in 2010 with Crossfire, the lead single from his solo debut Flamingo, and committed fully to the theatrical impulse that had always been lurking beneath the band’s surface. The video casts Charlize Theron as some kind of warrior-ninja who keeps rescuing Flowers from increasingly elaborate forms of captivity—completely absurd, executed with total earnestness, which is the only way this kind of thing can ever work. Flowers has always had that quality: the conviction to make the theatrical seem like the only logical option. Whether Crossfire stands fully on its own without the rest of the band behind him is a fair question, but as a first move from a frontman stepping into the open, it makes its case clearly enough.