Even without watching it, The Accountant is a film that can raise a bunch of eyebrows right from its confusing premise. An all-star cast headlined by the curious pairing of Ben Affleck and Anna Kendrick? A Bat-fleck figure whose superpower is high-functioning autism? A tale of mental illness wrapped around a crime thriller? I must say, The Accountant made me curious but wary.
Surprisingly, director Gavin O’Connor and writer Bill Dubuque have crafted a tale that relies heavily on momentous scenes that gravitate between hilarious and forgettable. Sadly, The Accountant fails to weave these moments into a coherent story that fits in just one feature-length film.
Ben Affleck plays Christian Wolff, an accountant with high-functioning autism. By day, he handles small-town clients in Plainfield, Illinois. By night, he uncooks books for the criminal underground all around the globe. Through flashback scenes reminiscent of Dexter Morgan, we learn that he’s been trained by his militaristic father who believes that Wolff should be taught to live in a world unfriendly to the handicapped. While conventional wisdom dictates that such lessons should involve speech training and coping mechanism, Wolff’s father believes teaching martial arts and beating people up is a much better lesson.
The film starts as Wolff takes on a legitimate contract with a robotic prosthetics firm. Some anomalies with the books involve him with a conspiracy that puts him face-to-face with unsavory types including Jon Bernthal’s character as the head of a private security firm. Wolff is more than capable of handling a bunch of hired guns on his own. With martial arts skills and a pile of guns himself, Wolff comes off as a cheap version of Batman.
An accountant-slash-assassin faced with a financial conspiracy is enough of a plotline for a film. Strangely, the mayhem doesn’t stop there. At the film’s start, the US Treasury Department catches wind of Wolff’s activities in the underground. Throughout Wolff’s story, Treasury agents Ray King (J.K. Simmons) and Marybeth Medina (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) hunt for shreds of Wolff.
Without giving much away, King’s and Medina’s storyline climaxes in much-needed character exposition for Christian Wolff’s past. Simmons adds his dramatic style to the mix, while Addai-Robinson had minimal character exposition but way too much screen time. Ultimately, the Treasury subplot offers nothing substantial to the movie, which sadly wastes Simmons’ performance.
To speak more of this movie’s pairings, one can only be amused at Affleck’s and Kendrick’s performances together. The Accountant is clearly a movie settled in the action thriller genre. That said, Kendrick’s inclusion in the cast is curious, to say the least. She plays a fellow accountant Wolff finds a connection with. Her performance adds that bright spot of sunshine into the dark and gritty film. She also shifts Affleck’s role as a Dexter-Morgan-slash-Batman figure into one more similar to Sheldon Cooper. The movie turns into an awkward romantic comedy whenever she’s on screen. To be fair, Kendrick knows and performs the role well. It’s just a shame that her role was wasted with too little screen time and exposition.
If this review’s flow is nothing but confusing, you’re not alone. The Accountant is a good, mindless movie, but thinking about its individual elements can leave you dizzy. Is Christian Wolff supposed to be Batman, Dexter Morgan, or Sheldon Cooper? Is this a movie about mental illness, treasury problems, or blind violence?
