The Accountant - Review
This review of The Accountant is spoiler-free!
Ben Affleck has played so many different roles throughout his time in Hollywood it's almost hard to count at this point. Whether it be something more recently such as Bruce Wayne in Justice League and Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice where he's playing a superhero role, or something much more serious like Argo and Gone Girl, he has a knack for playing different characters and adding nuance to his roles. In The Accountant, he's challenged to play a character with autism, something that hasn't truly been done very often on screen. I'll talk more about his portrayal a bit later on, but Affleck has shown he is able to handle roles others can't, and from the very beginning that made The Accountant that much more intriguing to me. Let's dive in.
The Accountant is all about Christian Wolff, a genius mathematician who happens to love numbers. Working as an accountant for dangerous criminal organizations, he is on the hunt from a treasury agent, Raymond King. Trying to cover his tracks a bit, he decides to take on a bit more legitimate clientele, in a technologically advanced robotics company. They want to find what happened to millions of dollars that disappeared in their funding. As he gets closer to the truth things start to turn against him and those he cares about are put in danger. Let's put it this way when talking about this movie's story: it's generic. Crime films like this about discovering missing money and just action based films in this area tend to follow a specific trend of events and The Accountant is no different. So, if I were looking at this film to break new ground from crime thrillers it didn't do that, but what makes it better than a poor crime thriller is Ben Affleck.
In a film that feels entirely familiar, Christian Wolff (played by Affleck) is a shining star. The character, as stated above, has a high-functioning form of autism that impacts his way of living as a child. As he moved into his adult life he influenced his career path but he managed to cope. Seeing Affleck portray this nuance of autism in this man's life was fantastic. For a film that is rather generic, what makes it so great is just how much care it takes into portraying autism in the right light. They don't romanticize it as a way that Christian becomes a superhero, they show it truthfully. It's up to Affleck to make it land on screen and man does he do that. As an actor, he can convince you of a character within moments and here he does just that. Christian come have come off as crazy or outlandish, but he makes sense in a story that's rather boring and uninteresting at times.
Portraying autism, or any other disease on the screen can be a challenge for studios because it poses a problem for it to hit successfully with audiences, and perhaps though who experience it in their daily lives. Throughout this film, there are moments from the childhood of Christian that make you care about this character as he deals with a family that doesn't understand him. It's these unique looks at life with this disease that elevate the film as a whole. It's all meant to build up the main character and give him an opportunity to shine. While some people will say that this film felt like it threw away a great performance from Affleck, I differ as I see this as a true means to showcase Affleck's talents. Its a character piece is hidden inside of a crime thriller and it's done well in that aspect.
I realize that throughout this article I've been back and forth on how exactly I feel about this movie, so I'll start off this final bit of discussion by saying that The Accountant isn't a great movie, but it's enjoyable. For me, I believe Affleck deserved better work around him, the only other truly memorable member of a rather great cast was Anna Kendrick. That's a bad sign for a movie that had potential. So if I were to say whether this film is a must-see, I would say no. But, if you're a fan of Ben Affleck or Anna Kendrick, this is definitely something to put on your list because it really shows off their talent. I would say it's an enjoyable movie to see, but I wouldn't say it's something to specifically seek out. So for your next movie night, maybe consider The Accountant!
