Anna Kendrick (left) and Ben Affleck
Ben Affleck plays a genius accountant and calculating combatant in “The Accountant,” an often-preposterous action flick that still manages to be enjoyable.
Directed by Gavin O’Connor (“Warrior”) the film centers on a small-town accountant, Christian Wolff (Affleck), whose secret activities—working with shady international figures—attracts the attention of a dedicated Treasury Department agent (JK Simmons).
Laying low, Christian takes work from a medical robotics company that is experiencing embezzlement, but encounters a mysterious hitman (Jon Berthal) bent on covering up the crime. Christian soon finds himself and a new acquaintance, the company’s accountant Dana (Anna Kendrick), in the crosshairs of the assassin.
Intriguing
The accountant-fighter has an intriguing backstory. Christian has autism, which was instrumental in causing his parents’ divorce when he was young. But instead of being confined to a special-needs facility, he was trained in various martial arts, the better to channel his aggression, reasoned his soldier father.
“The Accountant” succeeds in making Christian sympathetic, despite being placed in stock-action situations and going through the motions with Kendrick’s mousy character. Affleck lends some dimension to the obsessive, fast-thinking and impatient Christian, whose actions can be disconcerting or puzzling half the time.
“The Accountant” is reminiscent of “Dexter,” in that the protagonist manages to control his “different” tendencies by embracing a system—although Christian Wolff is just as competent in martial and lethal disciplines, his vigilantism is more sporadic, and sometimes more impulsive.
He has decent combat sequences in the film, strengthened by the character’s competently told history, and Affleck’s stoic, killing-machine presence. But things fizzle somewhat after a twist is belatedly presented, a question that the viewer may have answered a good hour before it actually unravels onscreen.
The cast of “The Accountant,” which includes John Lithgow and Jeffrey Tambor in smaller parts, is impressive, but the secondary story involving Simmons’ and Cynthia Addai-Robinson’s rapport—as the unconventional mentor and mentee agents trying to track down the elusive accountant—adds mystique to the titular figure’s enigmatic persona.