Review: The Accountant

Oh, boy…I’ll give it my best. When military man Robert Treveiler finds out that one of his sons is high-functioning autistic, he sees it as his mission to prepare the boy for a difficult life by teaching him strict discipline and self-defence. This somehow leads him to become a forensic accountant (now played by Ben Affleck) for various shady people, while also dabbling in a little assassination for good measure. He gets paid mostly in priceless artwork (!). A seemingly more legit job than usual comes when he’s hired by the founder (a wasted John Lithgow) of a robotics company in assisting junior accountant Anna Kendrick in investigating a $61 million discrepancy in the books. Meanwhile, a mysterious freelance assassin (Jon Bernthal) is killing people, including Lithgow’s second-in-command. While all of this is going on, a Treasury agent with a juvenile delinquent past (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) is assigned by her boss (J.K. Simmons) the case of tracking Affleck down. Jean Smart has an all-too rare cinematic role as another employee of the robotics corporation, and Jeffrey Tambor plays a prison inmate in a rather poorly explained part.

I’ve heard this 2016 flick from director Gavin O'Connor (“Warrior”, “Jane Got a Gun”) and screenwriter Bill Dubuque (the solid legal drama “The Judge”) described as a kind of real world superhero flick and a superhero for Autistic people to look up to. I think a better description would be a slightly eccentric 90s action-thriller made in 2016, and not quite as enjoyable as you want it to be. That said, if you want to confine it to the superhero subgenre it’s certainly better than the other two superhero flicks Ben Affleck made in 2016 and certainly more preferable to me than any of the shaky “Bourne” duds.

It takes a little getting used to, but you’ll hopefully get around to understanding Affleck’s deliberately emotionless performance. He’s a tad mannered at times, and not terribly consistent with autistic behaviour from what limited experience and understanding I have of it in the real world (Though to be fair, it’s called a spectrum for a reason, not everyone is the same), but he’s definitely not phoning it in. He’s also pretty consistent within his performance, realistic to autism or not. I liked how it’s not a completely monotonous performance, he gets excited about numbers, fellow humans less so. The one time I think it strays from its own set of rules/behaviour is when Affleck blatantly strays from the mission for another human being. That wouldn’t happen, even if that human were Pythagoras. And yet a real autistic person might have done so, ironically enough. I would’ve preferred Matt Damon or (I can’t believe I’m saying this) Ryan Gosling in the part, but Affleck ends up fine in the role.

I have to say though that good guy or not, I found it a little on the nose to be presenting us with an autistic person who makes a living as a largely emotionless contract killer. If you can put that aside, you’ll probably enjoy this more than I did. I also found myself thinking too much about the slightly over-the-top ‘training’ the father was giving his son, and what the fuck was that strobe-y nightly self-harm ritual all about? (I eventually found out, but only by visiting Dr. Google) Also, why does he have to be a forensic accountant for shady businessmen, Autistic, and an assassin? It doesn’t all quite seem to fit. I found the film a bit off-putting, albeit interesting at the same time. If anything I feel its backstory/mythology really would have benefitted from this being a TV series instead. It would’ve likely been a cracker, too. As is it’s an interesting near-miss.

On the plus side, I’m not normally a Jon Bernthal fan but he makes an immediate impact, and J.K. Simmons is rock-solid too. The adorkable Anna Kendrick is perfectly cast opposite Affleck, they’re both kinda awkward but in her case she’s as talkative as he is monosyllabic. It’s a shame that the film sort of pushes her to the side in the second half to resolve the plot/action side of things.

I almost liked this, but at 2 hours, there’s simply too much to deal with for a single feature film, and losing track of the leading lady before the finale doesn’t help, either. Well-acted, but you’ll come away a little dissatisfied in the end here.

Rating: C+