It's as if someone read the Wikipedia page on autism and figured, 'That sounds like the perfect assassin!' A direct plea in the epilogue to regard autistic people as merely "different" is laudable on paper – but after 90 minutes of watching a liquid-cool super-soldier wade through an army of henchmen to lift the lid on massive corporate corruption, it's hard to swallow.
Ben Affleck plays the titular accountant, Christian Wolff, who works for dodgy high-end clients, fixing their books. The film doesn't bother with the morality of Christian's work, but it does come to the attention of Treasury Officer Ray King, who blackmails his underling, Marybeth Medina (Cynthia Addai-Robinson), and sends her to investigate. Meanwhile, Christian is hired to investigate a robotics firm run by Lamar Blackburn (John Lithgow), after one of its eagle-eyed junior employees, Dana Cummings (Anna Kendrick), spots something awry with the finances.
Suffice to say, not everything at Living Robotics is squeaky clean, and Christian and Dana find themselves on the hit list for a security firm run by a verbose brute named Braxton (Jon Bernthal). Christian and Dana share a close friendship, and Christian works his perfectly aligned socks off to protect her, whilst taking out those who are trying to kill them.
As with Gavin O'Connor's previous film, Warrior, behind the veneer of style – distinguished by colour-drained, Fincher-mimicking formalist framing – is something quite conventional. For a while The Accountant has the air of 1970s political intrigue dramas but ultimately it owes more to the cold killer thrillers of that period – stuff like Dirty Harry or The Driver – with the quiet antihero comfortably amoral because the real bad guys are even badder. As the film wears on it slides inexorably toward cheesy action movie cliché, and the final sequence has the look and feel of any number of '90s action thrillers and their DVD- bound legacy.
So, the interesting stuff happens in the first half-hour, as we are introduced to Christian's everyday habits and OCD foibles: his exquisitely arranged breakfast, where egg can't touch bacon; or a wardrobe full of the same suit. A scene in which Christian examines 15 years of tax returns in a single night is more dramatically satisfying than a fistfight with a nameless henchman, yet we end up with a whole lot more of the latter. You'd have thought long-form TV might have taught movie producers that we aren't that impatient. The action scenes have the super-efficient style of John Wick, except they're edited to death in a Greengrassian frenzy.
Meanwhile, the Treasury investigation just isn't interesting, full stop. It's basically scene after scene of people trawling through databases and Googling stuff. True to life, maybe, but hardly dynamic. There's a Big Twist toward the end, which lands with so little impact that I found myself questioning if it even is a twist, or if I'd simply not picked up someone's name earlier. Do not expect your mind to be blown, here.
Kendrick is basically plonked into the film to leverage her inherent niceness and distract us from the dourness around her. Seriously, some of the monologues in this movie rival Cormac McCarthy's The Counselor for sheer rambling self-seriousness, and I can't help thinking Kendrick was added simply to provide a squeak of levity. John Lithgow is wasted in a one-dimensional supporting role. Simmons is his usual commanding self, even if he must deliver some of the clunkiest exposition.
If only the film were simpler and more streamlined, and more in touch with its silliness. Sadly it's a bit of slog, punctuated by tone-deaf black humour. By the end we're expected to laugh at people being shot in the head like this is a Martin McDonagh film. Except it isn't. The film's last act attempts to draw us into an emotionally warm conclusion feel inappropriate and glib. Empathy is necessary; but it's a tall order to expect us to sympathise with these ruthless killers.
Despite offering a welcome twist on an overstuffed genre, it's hard to recommend The Accountant. Its attempts at depicting autism are of the reluctant superpower variety, which in itself wouldn't be a problem if it went ahead and embraced its absurdity, and if its genre underpinnings weren't so disappointingly rote.
Ben Affleck plays the titular accountant, Christian Wolff, who works for dodgy high-end clients, fixing their books. The film doesn't bother with the morality of Christian's work, but it does come to the attention of Treasury Officer Ray King, who blackmails his underling, Marybeth Medina (Cynthia Addai-Robinson), and sends her to investigate. Meanwhile, Christian is hired to investigate a robotics firm run by Lamar Blackburn (John Lithgow), after one of its eagle-eyed junior employees, Dana Cummings (Anna Kendrick), spots something awry with the finances.
Suffice to say, not everything at Living Robotics is squeaky clean, and Christian and Dana find themselves on the hit list for a security firm run by a verbose brute named Braxton (Jon Bernthal). Christian and Dana share a close friendship, and Christian works his perfectly aligned socks off to protect her, whilst taking out those who are trying to kill them.
As with Gavin O'Connor's previous film, Warrior, behind the veneer of style – distinguished by colour-drained, Fincher-mimicking formalist framing – is something quite conventional. For a while The Accountant has the air of 1970s political intrigue dramas but ultimately it owes more to the cold killer thrillers of that period – stuff like Dirty Harry or The Driver – with the quiet antihero comfortably amoral because the real bad guys are even badder. As the film wears on it slides inexorably toward cheesy action movie cliché, and the final sequence has the look and feel of any number of '90s action thrillers and their DVD- bound legacy.
So, the interesting stuff happens in the first half-hour, as we are introduced to Christian's everyday habits and OCD foibles: his exquisitely arranged breakfast, where egg can't touch bacon; or a wardrobe full of the same suit. A scene in which Christian examines 15 years of tax returns in a single night is more dramatically satisfying than a fistfight with a nameless henchman, yet we end up with a whole lot more of the latter. You'd have thought long-form TV might have taught movie producers that we aren't that impatient. The action scenes have the super-efficient style of John Wick, except they're edited to death in a Greengrassian frenzy.
Meanwhile, the Treasury investigation just isn't interesting, full stop. It's basically scene after scene of people trawling through databases and Googling stuff. True to life, maybe, but hardly dynamic. There's a Big Twist toward the end, which lands with so little impact that I found myself questioning if it even is a twist, or if I'd simply not picked up someone's name earlier. Do not expect your mind to be blown, here.
Kendrick is basically plonked into the film to leverage her inherent niceness and distract us from the dourness around her. Seriously, some of the monologues in this movie rival Cormac McCarthy's The Counselor for sheer rambling self-seriousness, and I can't help thinking Kendrick was added simply to provide a squeak of levity. John Lithgow is wasted in a one-dimensional supporting role. Simmons is his usual commanding self, even if he must deliver some of the clunkiest exposition.
If only the film were simpler and more streamlined, and more in touch with its silliness. Sadly it's a bit of slog, punctuated by tone-deaf black humour. By the end we're expected to laugh at people being shot in the head like this is a Martin McDonagh film. Except it isn't. The film's last act attempts to draw us into an emotionally warm conclusion feel inappropriate and glib. Empathy is necessary; but it's a tall order to expect us to sympathise with these ruthless killers.
Despite offering a welcome twist on an overstuffed genre, it's hard to recommend The Accountant. Its attempts at depicting autism are of the reluctant superpower variety, which in itself wouldn't be a problem if it went ahead and embraced its absurdity, and if its genre underpinnings weren't so disappointingly rote.