The Accountant is the new Ben Affleck film where he stars as a high-functioning autistic man who spends part of his time as a CPA for average Americans and the other part as a forensic accountant for a bunch of terrorists, drug runners, and the like. Oh, and he’s also a martial artist and trained assassin because you gotta defend yourself against bullies (as a kid) and your own clients (as an adult).
The movie co-stars JK Simmons is a government agent out to track him down. Jon Berenthal also stars as a very casual and friendly assassin (he’s pretty good). Anna Kendrick wanders in from an alternate romantic comedy and she’s good playing her usual Kendrick roll (damning with faint praise but I think she’s adorable so that’s fine by me)
This is a good but very confused movie. It’s kind of three movies jammed together… you have the Accountant’s investigation of a firm and the conspiracy he finds, the romantic angle with Kenrick, and the almost literally in-another-movie investigation by the FBI.
I’m not kidding when I say the FBI story could have been cut out of the movie with no loss at all. The FBI story seems to exist only to provide back-story but it does it in a way that creates a confusing, convoluted narrative full of mystery that only exists for the audience. It’s possible this wouldn’t have worked if we didn’t already know the basics of the man they were investigating – you know, the star of the movie? But we do so this plotline seems to only exist to tell part of (Affleck’s story) that his own flashbacks don’t tell us. And it tells it in a cryptic, backwards fashion.
But, hey, ignoring that a good third of the movie has no ultimate point, this is still a good movie. Not as fast-paced as some might like but it still tells an interesting story fairly well. The action scenes are pretty good. Affleck handles them well… and it helps he’s still got his Batman physique (which makes him hulk over little Anna Kendrick).
Based on reviews, I’m apparently wrong about this – but I didn’t think Affleck was well-cast in this movie. Either his direction was wrong, his acting choices were wrong, or he’s just legit not a good enough actor to pull off a mildly autistic man with Liam-Neeson level skills. I didn’t want him doing the usual autism cliches and some of his performance was good, but it wasn’t consistent. His interactions with people didn’t feel enough like a person who had been taught how to react to mysterious emotions and more like an actor occasionally remembering that that’s what he was supposed to be doing. Like I said, most reviews disagree with me so good chance you’ll find him just fine.
The story idea of an autistic accountant super agent is interesting and they make good use of it. You can see they put thought into the world a man who doesn’t “get” this humanity thing might live in… that his office and home are sparse because he doesn’t see the logical need for more. But he does own art (and Action Comics #1), probably because, analytically, they are good investments. That said, I’m not ultimately sure this premise isn’t just a gimmick – and there’s a few scenes that feel inserted as a “Very Special Message” about how people with autism are under-estimated by society. It’s a fine message but also kind of feels shoehorned into a spy action thriller type flick. It’s not quite a serious enough movie for the serious message.
So, yeah, this is a pretty solid, interesting, and reasonably exciting film. I wish it had been better and I credit it for having a twisty story structure but when you sit back and look at it, most of it wasn’t necessary as it was devoted to the otherwise unnecessary FBI investigation. But it’s a nice try and the best thing I can say is that I’m actually very interested in a sequel.
Score: 78