The Accountant is a film which stars Ben Affleck, Anna Kendrick, J.K. Simmons, Jon Bernthal and Jeffrey Tambor. It comes directed by Gavin O’Connor and written by Bill Dubuque. The Accountant follows the story of Christian Wolff who is an accountant and is also autistic. He also has some incredibly martial arts and gun wielding skills. As an accountant he does some dodgy stuff for his clients, causing enough suspicion for the Treasury department to investigate his activities. But there’s also a bunch of bad guys after him too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XTJ_fYyIkk
I’ve never really been the biggest fan of Ben Affleck films, I’ve seen quite a few of them and have never really been that interested in anything he’s been in, even when he’s Batman. In this, his performance to me seems good enough, his character doesn’t really display emotions that obviously, so it’s hard to tell if he’s doing well. Anna Kendrick was an interesting addition to the cast, but her role maybe could have had a bit more to it. The films villain is played by Jon Bernthal who some may know for his work as Shane in The Walking Dead. He was a fairly good villain, but towards the end, the script seems to have ruined his character a bit.
I did enjoy the story of The Accountant, in the beginning it starts quite strongly. But towards the end it becomes slightly convoluted and was quite hard to follow. There’s also a slight plot twist towards the end revolving around Christian Wolff and his relationship with Brax which was a bit easy to spot, but for some reason, it was a little difficult to believe.
The movie is really bordering on this interesting action film about an accountant with killing skills on the level of something like John Wick. But the films serious tone means that the film just doesn’t feel as fun as the John Wick experience and the emotionless performance from Ben Affleck kind of makes the experience dull. There are some funny jokes here and there that made a few laugh in the screening I was in, but it’s not enough the save the experience.
As a film that tackles the topic of autism, I feel it has done well with it. If the writer and director had made this in order to raise awareness about Autism, I do believe they did that with The Accountant (even though Ben Affleck’s character is far from realistic, it still worked).
Overall The Accountant is a film that would interest people who enjoy going out or staying in and watching a Ben Affleck flick. It’s an interesting action film about an accountant going out and fighting bad guys and writing wrongs and injustices in the world. The script stumbles at some points though and while not a perfect action film experience, it does raise awareness to the audience about those with autism and how they think a bit differently, but are still great people.
