Review: The Accountant
Less a standard genre film than an unusual and atmospheric character study, The Accountant stars Ben Affleck as Christian Wolff, a forensic accountant for various international criminal organisations who also happens to be a high-functioning autistic with extensive combat skills.
"You're different. Sooner or later, difference scares people," his father warns him as a young boy. The line smacks of a superhero origin story and, in many respects, Bill Dubuque's screenplay superficially functions as one, positioning autism as a special ability that may mark one as different but not less than any other person. Juggling multiple characters and a handful of separate narrative strands, The Accountant often falls prey to the Suicide Squad syndrome, providing back stories for practically all characters who have more than three lines of dialogue. That the film is predominantly expositional seems inevitable - at times, one can almost feel it running in place and director Gavin O'Connor biding his time - but the filmmakers interlock the various moving parts with considerably more deftness.
Christian's current assignment comes at the behest of Lamar Blackburn (John Lithgow), CEO of Living Robotics, whose in-house accountant Dana Cummings (Anna Kendrick) has discovered a discrepancy in the financial ledgers. As Christian whizzes through the company's reports and confirms Dana's findings, Treasury Department analyst Marybeth Medina (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) has been blackmailed into investigating and uncovering the identity of the Accountant by her boss Raymond King (J.K. Simmons), who wants to end his career on a high note by arresting the Accountant. Meanwhile, there's a team of mercenaries led by corporate assassin Brax (Jon Bernthal) who have been engaged to eliminate the Accountant. In between these converging narratives, there are flashbacks to the two men who shaped the man he is today: his father, who believed in the most extreme version of tough love, and Francis Silverberg (Jeffrey Tambor), the kindly mob accountant who mentored him on the ins and outs of dark money during their time in prison.
While the complex narrative structure is to be greatly admired, The Accountant works best when it forgoes dialogue and focuses on the frequently brutal action. There's an elegant bluntness in the way O'Connor stages the scenes - with characters bathed in moody blues and silvery greens, their silhouettes illuminated in slivers. These action pieces also allow for comic moments, such as Christian remembering the social skill of waving goodbye to his neighbours after cold-bloodedly doing away with one of Brax's henchmen.
It's difficult to gauge Affleck's effectiveness in the leading role as the character is so affectless that it would take an impressively bad performer to botch the part. Affleck holds the interest, but he is definitely not one of those actors who can easily convey an inner life and that inability sometimes translates as blankness. Far more interesting would have been Affleck and Bernthal switching roles as the latter might have spun some more dimensionality in the character.
The Accountant
Directed by: Gavin O'Connor
Written by: Bill Dubuque
Starring: Ben Affleck, Anna Kendrick, J.K. Simmons, Jon Bernthal, John Lithgow, Jeffrey Tambor, Cynthia Addai-Robinson, Jean Smart
