The Accountant

"Do you like puzzles?"

There are movies that will grab my attention just on the basis of their trailer and The Accountant was definitely one of them. With a intriguing plot and a unique and intriguing main character, I knew it was one I had to see. I certainly was not disappointed either.

Christian Wolff (played by Ben Affleck) is a highly sought after accountant who had secretly worked with some of the biggest criminal organizations in the world to help them uncook their books and find out where the embezzlement occurred in their organization and who was responsible. When he's not working with higher profile clients, he works in his accounting office in an unassuming strip mall in suburban Illinois. He helps down on their luck people with their taxes, such as one couple who in repayment for his services they let him target practice with his rifles on their farm. Because, you see, when you work for dangerous people, there may come a time where they decide you'd be better off dead and Christian is well prepared for that possibility. Meanwhile, Treasury Director Ray King (played by J.K Simmons) has started to piece together that Christian has helped different criminal organizations and wants to find him. He assigns the case to Marybeth Medina (played by Cynthia Addai-Robinson) to track down Christian for him, letting her know she is only to report directly to him regarding it. 

Christian takes a new job with a local robotics company run by Lamar Black (played by John Lithgow), who have hired him to go over their books after a large discrepancy was found by another accountant, Dana Cummings (played by Anna Kendrick). Christian sets to working the records of the company and finds the source after working the numbers over the course of one night. Shortly after sharing their findings with the heads of the company, they find themselves targeted by several assassins, including the mysterious and charismatic Braxton (played by Jon Bernthal), forcing Christian and Dana to go on the run together and try to figure who wants them dead and why. 

While the plot of the film may seem routine thriller plotting, the execution is what makes the difference. A big part of what made the film work for me was the character of Christian. Ben Affleck turns in a fantastic performance playing an autistic and brilliant man who has a unique talent for both math and numbers. At the same time, Christian had a father who was career military and as they traveled around, he wanted to ensure no one took advantage of Christian, teaching him what he knew and finding others in whatever country they were stationed in to teach him further self defense skills. This results in a unique character who is brilliant, not very social, but if the need arises can be very lethal. It's a unique movie hero and Affleck's performance makes the character very intriguing and compelling. The other actors turn in good performances as well. I liked the interactions between Kendrick and Affleck's characters and am glad that they didn't try to force any sort of romance between the two. But still, the characters bonded and those scenes were great as well with small scenes such as the one where Affleck explained he took them to an expensive hotel rather than the Holiday Inn Express to hide out at because the towels were softer  (also because he thought she would like it). I just love little character details like that. 

The film was directed by Gavin O'Connor from a script written by Bill Dubuque. The film is very well plotted, but is one that requires attention with scenes at the beginning of the film not paying off completely until almost the end of the film. That's part of what I loved about this film though. Much like the main character, the film is a puzzle and asks it's viewer to start piecing together all the parts of the film together. It all comes together wonderfully at the end as the pieces all come together, but it does depend on the viewer to remember what happened before and keep up with the narrative. It's a bit deeper than your usual action thriller and I enjoyed that about it. The narrative isn't overly dense of complicated, but if you're going to sit down and watch the movie, do that. That's why the theatre is ideal for a movie like this because it forces you to remain perfectly attentive without distractions. The plotting of the film also held some nice surprises and did not end quite like I thought it would, which is always nice when a movie can pleasantly surprise me like that. 

Overall, I really enjoyed The Accountant. With a fantastic performance from Ben Affleck and a solid supporting cast and a great story as well as strong direction behind it, this was a fantastic film that I thoroughly enjoyed beginning to end.