User Reviews

Wow.......

It is always pleasant to go into a movie with no expectations, and this one delivered in spades.

Any story starts with... well a great story, and this is it, although somewhat predictable it's more a comforting predictable, a good guy wins story with enough great twists in it to keep the interest.

The cast here lifts the game, who knew Affleck had this in him, and supported by the ever sweet Kendrick (all be it with a kick-ass moment), and throw in favorites like Simmons (Terminator Genisys) and Addai-Robinson (Shooter), all playing their respective parts well.

The scene with Affleck's and Kendrick's characters having lunch showed great subtly in writing, directing and acting. A lot of dry and subtle humor throughout.

No overdone CGI either, just good clean action, regularly punctuating the plot, with the clean cinematography only adding to clinical nature of our lead character.

For the run-of-the-mill action flick, you shouldn't pass this one up.

It's as if John Wick is the savant janitor from Good Will Hunting, and surprisingly, it worked.

What should you expect? It has flashes of John Wick action, but it most certainly isn't an all out action movie, however, it also isn't primarily a drama focusing on his autistic/accounting side of things; I felt they did a really good job of combining both elements into a movie that swings back and forth between the two.

I thought the acting was great all around; I found the plot solid and enjoyable.

Here is the bottom line: Yes, this movie is worth your money to see in the theater.

p.s. I'll be the first to admit I have no idea how autism really affects people and how accurate it is or is not portrayed in this movie; I saw this movie as nothing more than what it is: a fictional story to entertain.

In 2016's The Accountant, Ben Affleck plays Christian Wolff, a high- functioning autistic math genius usually hired to find faulty or illegal accounting practices as well as embezzlement for underworld types.

He is sometimes paid in valuable paintings, gold bars, comic books, etc.

Although as a child a pediatrician wanted him to stay with him and other children in a peaceful environment, his military father disagreed. If Christian was sensitive to light and sound, he needed more light and sound. The world was not going to accommodate him. He and his brother Braxton received training in self-protection and other skills so that they could make their way in the world.

Treasury department director, Ray Kinghas (J.K. Simmons) calls in Marybeth Medina (Cynthia Addai-Robinson), an efficiency expert with the department who has a police record she lied about. He blackmails her into locating this accountant and shows her pictures of him meeting with all sorts of mob bosses. He is retiring soon and he wants the man's identity known before he leaves.

When a young woman, Dana (Anna Kendrick) at the company Living Robotics finds a $61 million discrepancy in the books, Christian is hired to do an audit by the Blackburns (John Lithgow and Jean Smart), who are brother and sister.

The audit is soon called off after the financial director is murdered and it's made to look like a suicide. Dana and Christian are hunted by hit men.

Medina finally learns Christian's identity and she and Ray are soon on his trail.

This is an excellent film with a couple of very neat twists you won't see coming. The film goes from flashbacks of Christian's turbulent childhood and other events and then back to the present. The director, Gavin O'Connor, does an excellent job of pulling it all together.

Ben Affleck isn't my favorite actor, though he is certainly a smart man and talented in other directions. He does a good job here - it's a role that requires no emotion, and while I think he's capable of more than that, he handles it well. Plus there's always something likable about him.

Some wonderful actors in this cast: John Lithgow, Jean Smart, Cynthia Addai- Robinson, Anna Kendrick, and of course, J.K. Simmons - you really can't miss.

Highly recommended - intriguing, sometimes scary, sometimes exciting, and surprising.

Before today I saw The Accountant in the theater and I wasn't reviewing back then so here I am. Such a great movie about a wonderfully unique being that is very good at many meticulous details such as mathematics, his work really well and mysterious things. Incredible performances from everyone and well written I'm surprised it wasn't nominated a few years ago! Warms my heart to relate to things, glad I own this amazing film in 4K!

This is a wonderful movie. A lot more of an action flick than title suggests. Was a pleasant surprise as plot unfolded. Ben Affleck is perfect for this part. Well written script and good acting by all. Nice use of flashbacks for character development. Many twists and turns and a bit of a surprise ending. Watch it! You won't be disappointed.

Ben Affleck's acting resurgence of the last few years (Argo, Gone Girl, his take on Batman) notches up another tick in the box, this time with an introspective and multi-layered turn as the titular black-market bookkeeper who battles autism, assassins and federal agents. An intricately woven thriller boasting multiple twists and turns—of varying predictability—there's enough meat on the narrative bones to compensate for the over-utilisation of rote flashbacks and the occasional slip into genre cliché. The autism angle certainly lends a fresh viewpoint on old tropes but the film never feels completely confident to commit, becoming selective about when it depicts the mental condition warts-and-all and when it tames it down to suit the scene. That's possibly an unfair criticism though as this movie is an action-thriller first and foremost, and a damn good one at that. The set pieces are a mix of scrappy hand-to-hand fights, à la the Bourne series, and gunplay that emphasises practicality similar to that displayed in John Wick; combining to create sequences that are both brutal and stylish. Thankfully the editing isn't as impatient as it can be in a lot of action flicks, with shots held on the recognisable actors just long enough to convince you they're doing their own stunts, whilst the booming sound design gives the sniper scenes an extra bit of chest-pummelling oomph. It's a shame the otherwise exciting finale is at times lit so dimly it's like you're viewing it with sunglasses on, as it detracts slightly from what could have been an epic climax. But hey, that's a minor quibble. Sharing the screen with Affleck, Jon Bernthal's wild streak comes out to play in another menacing badass role and J.K. Simmons is dependably magnetic as a lead agent with a secret past, however Anna Kendrick's kooky numbers cruncher seems to have walked in from a completely different movie (Pitch Perfect 3 perhaps?). It's by no means flawless, yet the high calibre action, gripping central performance and a few plot-based surprises make The Accountant a largely satisfying cinematic outing.

When it released in theatre i dismissed it thinking it might be a dull movie on an accountant.

Saw this recently (March 2017) on a dvd which i own.

I was expecting another Bourne rip off or shaky cam stuff but this one turned out to be an excellent thriller.

Revisited it again (March 2022) on Amazon Prime but this time with my family.

Affleck did a superb job n he adopted the traits, behaviors and symptoms of autism very well.

There is sufficient character development n the story has good amount of twists n turns.

There is ample amount of action, both gun firing n hand to hand combat.

The headshots r brutal, the body count is high n the movie ended well leaving room for a much needed sequel.

Thankfully it is not shot in hand held camera a la Jason Bourne n Taken style jus to make it appear fast paced.

The movie is engaging n entertaining.

Suspense n tension is maintained throughout.

Director O'Connor succeeded in normalising autism and showing that behavioural conditions should not get in the way of anyone's life.

The song To Leave Something Behind by Sean Rowe is haunting n mesmerizing.

Ben Affleck's unique performance in the role of Christian and his understanding of his 3rd degree autism and its combination with a dynamic and transparent story were very heartwarming and spectacular.

Christian is a brilliant accountant, who has a serious flaw in the emotional and communication categories. He plays with an understanding of discontent that is almost comical; He is hired by all kinds of wealthy and criminal businessmen and governments to audit their account books or whatever is needed to detect fraud or put the accounts in order. You will see this with his latest project, which is the robotics company (moments when he shows his superiority over other accountants in a job interview or during accounting and working with magic).

Like all heroes, real or imagined, he was trained to defend himself by a ruthless military father who knew his son would always be treated differently...

Exactly, the movie had 5 wonderful seconds in its final moments, the place where I said to myself, Wow, score 7.

More explanation will reduce the strength of the effect, see and enjoy. It is definitely worth a visit.

A thriller should be entertaining and smart, both of which The Accountant is. Christian Wolff (Ben Affleck) is not Christian in the traditional sense, but he is a wolf of a hunter, about as accurate as anyone behind a telescopic gun barrel could be.

Yet he's a brilliant accountant at the same time, thank you, autism: He has a savant's grasp of facts and numbers (think Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man) but a serious deficiency in the affective and communicative categories. Affleck plays him with a grasp of disaffection that is almost humorous, in fact is with some of his straight-arrow responses: "I don't guess," he says when queried if he had a hunch about the perpetrator of a fraud.

You see, he is hired by all kinds of wealthy and criminal business people and governments to uncook their books or whatever is necessary to discover fraud or put the books in order. These jobs lead to situations where he is wanted by bad guys or the IRS or whomever. Wolff's legitimate, current job for a robotics company is complicated enough for him to need several glass walls to write on (think Affleck's buddy Mark Damon in Good Will Hunting), taking in hours what would consume days for a host of professional accountants.

And so it goes according to the thriller formula that the bad guys will be on his trail, and he will be made vulnerable by a cute co-worker, Dana (Anna Kendrick), who has some of his math savvy and maybe a bit of sweet for him. The Accountant veers from formula because that romance is of the "chaste-and-from-afar" kind, almost but not quite at the kiss stage. It's pleasant not to be bothered by heavy sex when the complications are of the cerebral, themselves the core of pleasure in this brainy, but not too, action drama.

Unfortunately our autistic hero, trained by a merciless military father to defend himself because dad knew son would always be treated as different, slips into thriller stereotype, e.g. Christian puts down too many hired guns at one time, albeit in the service of a noble retaliation for a prison friend. Although the action is within the parameters of the genre, it here feels overdone given the cerebral contexts that otherwise provide plenty of thrills.

One of the joys of this film is to see Affleck show some acting chops; he may never be like Dustin Hoffman, but he's memorably stoic here, a long way from J.Lo and Gigli.

In "The Accountant", Ben Affleck, who is forever linked with his erstwhile partner Matt Damon, gets to play both of Damon's most famous roles: he is a mathematical genius (an autistic savant) like Will Hunting and a weapons expert, like Jason Bourne.

The movie is not as memorable as the ones that feature those characters, however. It's shallow and predictable, with unnecessary bookends and a hard to follow plot. You don't need to follow the plot, though; the movie is a well-oiled machine, and I guess that's part of the problem. Nothing takes you by surprise, nothing jolts you. It's a good time waster, nothing more.

That the movie attempts to be a statement on autism outside of its absurd thriller plot might be the only original stroke. But then, the fact that it's a statement that says nothing new or interesting - autistic people aren't stupid, just different - shows that it's just another play in the hack director/screenwriter's handbook. It's a ploy to make you think you've seen something more important than a lacklustre action movie.

Gavin O'Connor, the director of my favorite movie Warrior. Ben Affleck, the once ridiculed but now stupendous entertainer. J.K. Simmons, the distinguished actor from Whiplash. Jon Bernthal, the rising star from The Walking Dead who's a known but yet still unknown actor, and he's great by the way. John Lithgow, an actor who delivers uncanny especially when he's the villain. Bill Dubuque, who the hell is this guy, but he wrote this movie, and this appears to be his first major project besides Robert Downey Jr's The Judge. I enjoy all of these people's work one way or another. This movie has a good director, good leading man, and an all-star cast. From the trailers, this movie seemed like an intellectual movie about a young boy growing up with mental problems, the boy grows up and becomes an accountant, through his work he does business with shady characters, for some reason his clients want him dead, but we know The Accountant is far more capable of much more than they know. I was anticipating this movie based on all the information I just provided. I thought this movie couldn't miss. Is The Accountant a good movie? The Accountant is a good movie.

The direction of this seems rather simple, but as the story progresses, things become a bit too complicated, and maybe not for the better.

I understood the main story and what was happening. The subplot of the movie is what threw me off. I thought the secondary plot was a bit messy but yet still engaging.

The acting in this movie was excellent. I think Ben Affleck as Christan Wolff is the best character he's ever played. Affleck's performance is both engaging and mesmerizing. Everyone does their job here, but Affleck steals the show.

The violence feels ultra realistic. I love action movies, but none have felt as real as this in a long time. When The Accountant kills people, he kills people, and it's not pretty.

There's a lot of jump cutting that's present here. This movie constantly jumps from the past to the present without warning, but the transitions are fluid.

The execution of the story at times feels tedious due to its consistent jump cutting, multi-layered plot, and abundance of characters.

Each character gets their moment, and everyone plays a part, but it's the coincidence that brings them all together.

I think this movie is trying to be more than what it is, and it succeeds. The Accountant movie has a multi-layered engaging main plot about mental illness in young children and how they cope with their situations. The secondary plot is about The Accountant doing business with the wrong people. There's another plot to this movie with J.K Simmons and his story's compelling, but it lacks conviction.

Overall, I enjoyed this movie. The fight scenes and choreography were breathtaking. The main plot was engaging. Ben Affleck delivered the best performance of his career. Every actor played their part. This movie suffers from sensory overload, but regardless, I believe that it will stimulate not only intellectuals but white-knuckled action junkies as well. The main plot, Ben Affleck, and the violence is ferocious.

Final Grade: A-

Ben Affleck is a brilliant actor (who knew) and this movie is his masterpiece. Didn't know Ben has this in him but damn was I ever wrong. Watched this off of my DVR recently, really not expecting much. Honorable mention to Kendrick, she was really good in her role and the chemistry between her character and Christians was palpable. There are honestly no bad actors in this film but Ben knocks it out of the park. So intense and over the top was his performance, exactly what it needed to be, I was mesmerized. Oscar worthy, in my opinion, an acting master class.

The Accountant, featuring Ben Affleck in one of his most interesting performances (whether that should translate as "best" is hard to say, he still has a lot of years left in him as a performer), is an autistic man who got trained as a boy by his father (along with his brother) to overcome his "disability", as the old man saw it (ex-military, duh), to become a take-no-prisoners-I-will-kill-you badass killer. Except that the autism doesn't go away just because of the extra killer-training, so he spends his time when he's not "cooking" the books for drug cartels and mobsters and even some terrorists (maybe) working as a mild-mannered CPA (emphasis on mild, sometimes people in front of him can't hear him he talks so softly). All should be well and good, but while he is having to deal with an account that goes bad - a little in the vein of John Wick, I suppose, someone who doesn't give two f***s thinks they can mess with/kill this 'Christian Wolff' (not his real name) - he also has to deal with conventional screen writing.

Okay, that last part is me trying to be too clever in this review, but this is a movie where clearly the hook (or the logline) is amazing: what if someone like a Jason Bourne or a Wick or somebody, a man who comes on the scene, shoots people in the head, and has not an exactly friendly/James Bondian personality, and was fully on the "spectrum"; from childhood this character got traumatized by his militaristic father (and where was the brother? Um, sort of spoiler, but here's a hint: as an adutl his name is on the poster). This, along with the script getting on the Blacklist, sold the concept to Hollywood, though I think the script still needed some work. It's a film that is juggling a lot of balls and may be too long because of it; while JK Simmons is a national treasure among character actors, his role in this film, though with some gravitas and (occasionally) some surprising emotion, is there mostly as a 2nd-turning point exposition dump, with information that would've been helpful to another character (also given a kind of 'you must do this or else' mission that makes little sense, in the circumstances I mean, it never comes back to it).

In other words, this sub-plot, which seems to be necessary for some reason, is there mostly to provide us with a man-hunt element for Christian Wolff that isn't necessary. There's enough story there with Wolff and the plastic-cyborg boss (John Lithgow), and Anna Kendrick as the fellow accountant who is probably the closest to an audience surrogate (Affleck is our 'hero', but is such a blank canvas at some points and other times such a wounded creature that it's hard to put ourselves in his position, aside from empathizing with overcoming pain of course if one's had it). It's as if there's a more compelling drama about the breakdown of a family and the trauma that's brought on by it, mostly seen in flashback, and then the main storyline with Affleck trying to protect Kendrick, while engaging, is not something we necessarily haven't seen before.

The only truly original element when it comes down to it is the autism, and to the filmmakers' credit it is handled with both sensitivity and even a playful sense of humor. Affleck and the writer do understand that there can be, in the right context, some awkward humor to mine from a character that not so much can't relate to people like the one Kendrick plays but is not using the words one usually does in the social contract. And Affleck is doing so little here, but that makes for a striking change of pace - he isn't having to do the overly AFFLECK acting that sometimes tripped him up when he was younger (sometimes it worked well, like Hollywoodland, other times not). Here he wipes his emotional radar clean and the audience can put themselves on to him, up to a point, and then when there is the hesitation, those little cracks, it resonates.

It's like the movie has the ingredients for a strong director, with O'Connor getting how to make a hit-man (or hit men with Bernthal) move quickly with action that is intense and intelligible, yet also pace it so we can spend time with the characters, and the cast is pretty much on point (also Addai-Robinson, *TV's* Amanda Waller, is good as well, for what she can do), and the script is hit or miss. There are a lot of excellent scenes here, little moments that stick out (notice Dana's reactions to Christian's paintings), but there's a lot of silliness and things that we have to buy that don't quite gell; it even leans into the superhero territory of a comic-book movie as far as just how precise Christian can get. And near the end, there's one twist too many - one of them I could actually buy, sort of, and then there's one final one that is flat-out unconscionable.

So it's good. But it's also unfocused and a little too proud of itself, nearly self-importance. It pulls back enough to be entertaining, but its mixed up as far as giving us too much backstory way too late, like it either needed to be a half hour longer or 20 minutes shorter, if that makes sense.

This film connected with me on so many levels. It delivered in ways I was not expecting. I was laughing, cheering, crying, and ultimately walked out of that theater feeling more than satisfied. I want to go see it again. Something that is great about this film is that there are things you will pick up on more clearly through a second viewing, but it is not required to fully enjoy the film. Like I said in my title, I can say without a shadow of doubt that this film is better than any other film released this year. However, I will follow that by saying I have yet to see "Hell or High Water". So it's more like 99.9% sure. We will see how it holds up against the remaining anticipated releases. I do honestly believe it should be nominated come award season. This film is phenomenal and if you do not see this film before you die, you are doing yourself a disservice.

Do you know what I found the most unbelievable thing in Ben Affleck's latest action film, THE ACCOUNTANT?

The accounting!

Ben Affleck as an Autistic accountant who helps "un-cook the books" of some nefarious fellows - no problem.

That same Autistic accountant who also is deadly trained in martial arts and weapons - no problem (though it does stretch credibility almost to the breaking point).

But when THE ACCOUNTANT went into a giant corporation and uncovered a major siphoning off of funds with the skills and accounting acumen that an Accounting neophyte like I could have uncovered, I threw the flag. These bigwigs would have been busted almost immediately, and not "suddenly uncovered" 15 years later!

Put that aside and THE ACCOUNTANT is an above-average action film with an interesting plot (and subplots) that suffers from a lack of focus that can be distracting at times, but - ultimately - succeeds despite these failures.

Let's start with the performances and the actors in the 4 main lead roles. All well cast with very good actors - in some cases too good - which is part of this film's strength, and it's weakness.

Up front, of course, is Affleck's turn as the titular ACCOUNTANT. He is very good in this role and despite his character's lack of emotion, he portrays quite a bit through look, gesture and silence and you are drawn to this character. He is ably abetted by the great JK Simmons as the Treasury agent hot on his trail. At first, it looks like Simmons is channeling a minor version of his Oscar winning character in WHIPLASH, but then, something happens and layers are peeled back to reveal a vulnerability and likability that endures you to him. Add to this is Jon Bernthal's enigmatic assassin who is also after Affleck. Bernthal really has one trait that works for him - simmering rage - and he puts it to good use here.

But the performance that drew me the strongest into the film and, at the same time, pulled me away from it is Anna Kendrick as Jr. Accountant Dana Cummings, the person who uncovers the misdeeds of the corporation. Her character doesn't come on screen until about 1/3 of the way through the film, but at that point, she begins to take over in a role that should have been a supporting role. I don't blame Kendrick for this, she is a charismatic and engaging actress who is "must watch", I blame Director Gavin O'Connor for losing focus on who the main character of this film is.

Is it about THE ACCOUNTANT (Affleck)?

Is it about the agent chasing him (Simmons) and the secrets that he is hiding that connects him to THE ACCOUNTANT?

Is it about the assassin charged with killing THE ACCOUNTANT (Bernthal) and the connections these two share?

Or...is it about the JUNIOR ACCOUNTANT (Kendrick) and the idea of the innocent being pulled into a world of non-innocence?

Any one of these films would have been interesting, or maybe a film that was 25% about each of these...but, with Affleck in the lead, O'Connor focuses 70% of the film on THE ACCOUNTANT, so when we start spending, and investing, in the other characters, it is jarring when you are pulled from one to the other and back to Affleck's titular character.

All that said, I found I was invested in the finale action sequence and wanted each character to succeed, even though they are on opposite sides, which is a sign, for me, of something working well, I just wish things were more focused.

7 (out of 10) stars and you can take that to the Bank (ofMarquis)