Ben’s numbers crunch
A CEREBRAL action movie with a stellar cast, The Accountant fails to connect emotionally, inadvertently a mirror for its lead character’s struggle to relate to those around him.
Its fast pace and precise action sequences put it deep in the action thriller territory, but Ben Affleck’s lead performance yanks it more toward character study. The plot is all over the place though.
Eponymous character, Christian Wolff (Affleck, pictured), is an accountant with an uncanny ability to navigate drug cartels, the Mafia and Far Eastern terrorist operations with ease. Equal parts violent assassin, badass accountant and fine art connoisseur, he is also so OCD he will make your teeth ache.
Ostensibly a mild-mannered accountant, who legitimately gets called in to uncook the books, he is capable of bursts of violence explained in flashbacks that hint at an unusual childhood.
Wolff takes a legitimate job unravelling a biotech corporation’s accounts, but finds himself on the run when he inadvertently endangers the accountant (Kendrick) who first noticed there was a problem. At the same time a Treasury agent closes in at the behest of her boss, and the body count starts to rack up.
Setting up Wolf as a highfunctioning autistic maths savant allows for every film cliche about eccentric characters cast as the action hero to be thrown at the screen. But it also gives you a glimpse into how families deal with autistic children and highlights how “normal” people lash out through fear of the different.
Kendrick’s character doesn’t get enough time to connect with Christian and JK Simmons pops up as a US Treasury agent who provides his whole story in an info dump.
Lithgow and Jeffrey Tambor get more screen time and make the most of it. Mark Isham’s score accentuates the character’s fascination with numbers. Though it features a huge orchestra, the tracks are simple, riffing off elementary patterns in complex ways, helping to create tension in action sequences and reflect states of mind in others.
Your brain is engaged, the film moves fast, there is plenty of action, the plot has twists, there are a few one-liners and ironic moments, but your heart does not fall for any character.
If you liked The Equalizer or Mercury Rising, you will like this.