Christian Wolff (Ben Affleck) is an autistic accountant with a client list that includes the wealthiest criminals in the world.
Trying to divert the attention of authorities, Wolff takes a clean job for a robotics company trying to find missing millions. In doing so he exposes a truth that men will kill and die for.
Luckily, Wolff has learned to hone his autistic focus not only in mathematics, but also in martial arts and shooting.
We say, “The Accountant is autistic Batman without the cowl and scowl.”
TAYLOR: This movie is pretty silly, but I still enjoyed it. It seemed that the storyteller wasn’t satisfied with just the meat and potatoes of the plot.
The back-story of nearly everyone in the film has to be explored, but it starts to feel too coincidental that all these things connect, or matter. If the filmmakers had left it at “autistic kid grows up to be a kick-ass accountant to gangsters,” we wouldn’t have taken it as seriously. Yet, by asking us to believe in everyone’s haunting past, the possibilities become proportional to the limits of reality. There are too many leaps in The Accountant.
HOWE: I wonder if Affleck and Matt Damon have a little side bet to see who can make the most ridiculous stone-cold hitman movie going. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a bad movie. It is so far- fetched and daft, even to the extreme of making me laugh at some of the scenes, yet, for some reason I really enjoyed it.
The thing with these sort of films is you have to take your best friend out and plop him in the seat next to you. Don’t expect great acting or a storyline that makes sense, this is an action movie and it is crammed with action towards the end. In fact, the final scenes feel like they could be a shoot-‘em-up video game.
TAYLOR: Well, as I said, I did somehow enjoy it. The end was stupidly tidy, but I guess that’s to be expected of our anti-hero “Accountantman.”
Reality is not a concern here, just entertainment and I don’t have a problem detaching my brain when required. Affleck plays best on-screen when a stone face is required and, as we have been excused from our expectations of reality, his autism is fine. After the film turns into an action-packed murder movie, acting becomes moot. In the action department, The Accountant is pretty much by the book.
HOWE: Talking about silly movies, I just wonder if they will make a sequel? They could get Affleck together with Steven Seagal to reprise his role of butt kicking chief Casey Ryback and call it The Accountant 2: Cooking the Books. Now that I would pay to see.
– Taylor gives The Accountant 2.5 scenes to cut out of 5.
– Howe gives it 3.5 dry-erase markers.
Brian Taylor and Peter Howe are film reviewers based in Vernon, B.C. Their column, Reel Reviews, is published in The Morning Star every Friday.