FilmSnobReviews

Title: The Accountant
MPAA Rating: R
Director: Gavin O’Connor
Starring: Ben Affleck, Anna Kendrick, Jon Bernthal
Runtime: 2 hrs 8 mins

What It Is: Christian Wolff (Affleck) is a man on the autism spectrum with an affinity for mathematics. The only other thing he perhaps likes more than that is shooting things. He really good at both. When a Treasury agent (J.K. Simmons) aims to find Christian, a man he knows only as “The Accountant” and take him out. Meanwhile, there’s an assassin taking out anyone and everyone surrounding a situation at a prosthetics company. Included in that is Dana (Kendrick) who catches the mistake that causes Christian to be called in in the first place. Now Christian has the clean up this incident and figures why he’s being hunted, twice.

What We Think: A subdued performance from Ben Affleck here. He’s concentrated and excellent. Jon Bernthal isn’t given much to work with but does good work with what he has.  Anna Kendrick isn’t really acting she is just doing what she does in every one of her roles, be a snarky woman. She’s good at it but nonetheless it seems old hat at this point. That was sort of a downer. I liked seeing John Lithgow mainly because it’s always a pleasure to see John Lithgow. O’Connor is a solid director and here he does some good work. Never rushing a scene and letting the convoluted story breath itself. That too is kind of an issue. The story. It gets too big though O’Connor does a swell job reigning it in its still too much for most directors. Gotta tighten that script up a bit.

Our Grade: B-, Solid filmmaking, a fun environment and good acting coalesce into a fairly good action thriller. Affleck shows an ominous brooding side, perfect for his other role from 2016 see HERE. Overall I would recommend this to anyone who wants a fun time just turning off their brain and letting the characters do all the thinking for them. There is some math and stuff in this one but nothing too hardcore. I want to point out I enjoyed the fight sequences they were well done as well.