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The Accountant (2016), R, ★★★


Well, when hearing about the story and watching the trailer, I thought it was an interesting concept of having a character having a syndrome that makes him twitch but is capable to do things at a higher level of him being an accountant. But, also, he is a freelance assassin taking care of some evil, dastardly deeds that propels the movie into some generated tension and excitement. Even though its narrative storytelling is not as structurally intact than advertised, the movie has enough energy to grab your attention to weave through the violence and deception that each character holds. Plus, it takes its time correctly to solidify the characters and the story.

Christian Wolff (Ben Affleck) is a math savant and an accountant in his own, small practice. He has a few small twitches like tapping his fingers and blowing on them.  He is a talented accountant as he helps out a farmer and his wife with their house. As a thankful gesture, the farmer lets Christian have a plenty of space to shoot as he put stick figure faces from an institute from his childhood. The farmer witnesses him shooting the cantaloupes from 1,000 feet in accurate, quick succession.

Ray King (J.K. Simmons) is the director of financial crimes of the Treasury department investigating the world of crime as he investigates Christian as an accountant who meets with criminal leaders, terrorists, mob bosses and drug cartel leaders. Ray, since he is going to retire soon, tells his analyst who has a juvenile crime record to figure out who the accountant is or he will expose her record.

Christian meets with Lamar (John Lithgow), the CEO of Living Robotics to check out some financial documents. His daughter recommended him to advance the company's prosthetics. In return, Lamar will fully cooperate with Christian's investigation and to give him whatever he needs to complete the job. The next day, Christian returns to Living Robotics to find an in-house accountant named Dana Cummings (Anna Kendrick) sleeping in the conference him. She spoke against his discrepancies and somehow they get along ok but not as well as we want them to get along.


This movie was an entertaining watch as we find out who this Accountant is and why he has had a distant relationship with anybody else. We sort of figure out why he is isolated most of the time because he is a talented accountant who is obsessed with numbers and puzzles. But, from a personal side of the story, it is a little devastating. With its somewhat distracting filmmaking structure, the movie takes its time for the characters to mesh in with the tone, with other characters in the puzzle and also with us. This movie is a puzzle integrating both the characters from Ben Affleck and J.K. Simmons. Why is the director so desperate to find the Accountant?

I thought Ben Affleck gave a well-grounded performance that allows us to sympathize with him as he has Asperger's syndrome and I believed that was this person with the syndrome and not a caricature with standard cliches of people with disease. Anna Kendrick gives a good performance but I found her character thinly written as a motivating counterpart to the main plot. She is basically around to follow the action. I liked Jon Bernthal as this assassin who is taking care of his own job. And, both Jeffrey Tambor and John Lithgow provide good work.

Director Gavin O' Connor made an interesting movie with a good balance of mystery and action interspersed with the backstory about the Accountant. O'Connor does lose his way sometimes when its tone shifts as we go back and forth with the story about the Accountant and the plot surrounding the police work. There is a dragged-out, frustrating scene that is unnecessary because I wanted the second half to be a bit more cerebral and not as silly. I did not want every detail revealed surrounding the Accountant like it's some explanation taken from the classic Psycho, where it's revealed who Norman Bates was. Nevertheless, I liked the combination of cerebral accountancy with great action and that could potentially propel this movie to become a franchise. I would say, "Go with it. No matter how silly this, you will have a fun time."

***


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