Review

Shortchanged

The Accountant’s script doesn’t add up to much or pay off for audience, fine actors

Christian Wolff (Ben Affleck) has among his specific set of skills a good head for numbers in Gavin O’Connor’s crime thriller The Accountant.
Christian Wolff (Ben Affleck) has among his specific set of skills a good head for numbers in Gavin O’Connor’s crime thriller The Accountant.

Just once it would be refreshing if a movie about a genius treated the audience as if they had half of the protagonist's brainpower.

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Dana Cummings (Anna Kendrick) is a scrupulous bookkeeper who teams up with mobbed-up math savant Christian Wolff (Ben Affleck) in The Accountant.

The Accountant could have been an intriguing movie if it had simply been about an individual who scrupulously keeps books for less-than-legitimate enterprises. Yes, staring at ledgers could make for pretty dull cinema, but in the right hands the story could be gripping. Gangsters and terrorists offer only permanent severance packages, so anyone opportunistic or foolish enough to try that line of work would be in for constant danger.

The Accountant

77 Cast: Ben Affleck, Anna Kendrick, Jon Bernthal, J.K. Simmons, John Lithgow, Jeffrey Tambor, Cynthia Addai-Robinson

Director: Gavin O’Connor

Rating: R, for strong violence and language throughout

Running time: 2 hours, 8 minutes

Bill Dubuque's script can't seem to leave well enough alone by simply having a bookkeeper working for the Mob. Christian Wolff (Ben Affleck) is not a mere number cruncher. He can quickly decode the most arcane accounting systems because he's also on the autism spectrum. His social life is almost nonexistent, but people who might hurt his feelings or his moral code run the risk of facing his lethal accuracy as a sniper or his MacGyver-esque ability to turn ordinary objects into formidable tools for hand-to-hand combat. (In flashbacks, he's seen receiving martial arts lessons in Indonesia.) Oh, and he also owns a Jackson Pollock.

Ironically, juggling all of these traits leaves Affleck with a one-note character and a plotline that contorts into some silly directions. He does a great job of coming across as stiff and isolated, but it's hard to get worked up about Wolff's situation. Similarly, a terrific cast gets to deliver several long monologues, but in the end are stuck with a single trait. With performers like Jeffrey Tambor and Anna Kendrick on the payroll, that's inexcusable.

Wolff alternates between helping a friendly farmer and his wife keep their home with some justified tax deductions and helping a manufacturing tycoon (John Lithgow) and his whistleblowing bookkeeper (Kendrick) find where millions of dollars have vanished from his books.

Because his clients tend to be criminals, a pair of U.S. Treasury agents (Cynthia Addai-Robinson and J.K. Simmons) are on Wolff's trail, and there's a sinister fellow (Jon Bernthal) who either threatens or kills people who have come to get their books cooked. (I guess we could call him "The Actuary" because he ensures unseen investors don't lose their stake in ventures.)

Director Gavin O'Connor's somber tone doesn't help. His better movies like Tumbleweeds and the mixed martial arts drama Warrior worked because he has a knack for making intimate domestic disputes seem authentic. With the over-the-top mayhem of The Accountant, a more tongue-in-cheek or stylized approach would have been more effective. It's easier to buy outlandish situations if the filmmakers acknowledge the absurdity. Because the world in John Wick is deliberately artificial, it's easier to buy the constant fighting in that film.

If Hell or High Water has taught us anything, it's amazing how much tension a story can have with only a few, quick bursts of violence. In a good movie, simply the prospect of danger is thrilling. After a while, all the gunplay and stabbings in The Accountant get numbing, like staring at a balance sheet for too long.

Perhaps these folks could have learned a lesson from the formidable mind of Steve Jobs. The computer mogul's penchant for simplicity resulted in products that were both smarter and more accessible than the ones his competitors made. The Accountant simply leaves behind a needlessly complicated and messy paper trail.

MovieStyle on 10/14/2016

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