Review: The Accountant

Score: C

Director: Gavin O'Connor

Cast: Ben Affleck, Anna Kendrick, J.K. Simmons, Cynthia Addai-Robinson

Running Time: 128 Minutes

Rated: R

“We should go.”

Christian Wolff was a unique child.  Sensitive to light and loud noises he had difficultly accepting defeat, losing emotional control when something wasn’t finished.  Diagnosed with a unique sense of autism, he grew up to work as an accountant, a field that utilized his desire to solve every problem - but beneath that is an army brat who received the best training available, and a boy like Christian never lets a skill go to waste.

Slow out of the gate Gavin O’Connor’s The Accountant suffers mightily from lucid pacing and an unusual lack of direction.  A hodgepodge of scenes collectively set the stage for Christian’s childhood, showcasing his struggle to cope with his mother’s departure and his father’s ruthless parenting style.  At times intense, at times coarse, the scenes play out fine; but you never feel connected with the mathematician as he works the books of some of the most unforgiving men - somehow living to recall it.

Instead of enjoying the moment you long for what is set to come next; painfully greeted with a somewhat cliché side story involving the Treasury Department and a prized recruit’s thought-to-be-sealed past.  Unoriginal and a bit amateurish for those involved here, you can’t help but become frustrated with their involvement.

Affleck, for what it is worth, does perfectly fine as Wolff.  Dark, stern and a bit of a reclusive, the numbers genius spends his days behind the cover a small CPA office, his nights banging out to loud music as he rolls out his shins with a thick wooden rod.  The routine is bizarre to say the least, though you find yourself forgetting the absurdity as you fixate on the immense amount of security the man has outside of his home.

A steady stream of flashbacks attempt to forge together the puzzle of Christian’s upbringing, but O’Connor is never able to fully grasp his central subject.  The attempt at shock-and-awe backfires as the director is unable to connect past and present, sacrificing Wolff’s development for the sake of the overall film - which sadly doesn’t deliver as one would hope.

Anna Kendrick is harshly underused as Dana Cummings, a low level accountant (and art enthusiast) who discovers something unusual in the books at her company.  Her discovery prompts the hiring of Wolff, who overnight is able to locate a $61 million embezzlement; thus setting off a lazy and half-assed chase sequence that begins (and ends) without much juice.

O’Conner continues the occasional split to the Treasury Department, making you question your allegiance as Marybeth Medina begins to close in (within two weeks) on a man whom they have been searching for for years.  The diversions are not terrible; however, they offer little entertainment as you find yourself restless for more action, story development and badassery.  Most of that never comes.

The final confrontation is somewhat of a joke, making you trice glance at your watch as you sit and ponder the many ways that The Accountant could have handled things better.  O’Conner successfully nails the dark tone and visual aesthetics that help to give the film a sharp and intense vibe but fails to materialize his story.  He has made a name for himself in regard to pushing genre boundaries and giving us a unique experience.  He successfully did that here, just not an experience worth having.

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About Stephen Davis

Stephen Davis
I owe this hobby/career to the one and only Stephanie Peterman who, while interning at Fox, told me that I had too many opinions and irrelevant information to keep it all bottled up inside. I survived my first rated R film, Alive, at the ripe age of 8, it took me months to grasp the fact that Julia Roberts actually died at the end of Steel Magnolias, and I might be the only person alive who actually enjoyed Sorority Row…for its comedic value of course. While my friends can drink you under the table, I can outwatch you when it comes iconic, yet horrid 80s films like Adventures in Babysitting and Troop Beverly Hills. I have no shame when it comes to what I like, and if you have a problem with that, then we’ll settle it on the racquetball court. I see too many movies to actually win any film trivia contest, so don’t waste your first pick on me. My friends rent movies from my bookcase shelves, and one day I do plan to start charging. I long to live in LA, where my movie obsession will actually help me fit in, but for now I am content with my home in Austin. I prefer indies to blockbusters, Longhorns to Sooners and Halloween to Friday the 13th. I miss the classics, as well as John Ritter, and I hope to one day sit down and interview the amazing Kate Winslet.

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