The Accountant is directed by Gavin O’Connor and stars Ben Affleck, J. K. Simmons, Anna Kendrick, and Jon Bernthal. The movie tells the story of a young boy, Christian Wolff, who is very much socially reserved and he also has to deal with autism. But he is able to solve difficult puzzles within no time and is also able to do extreme math far beyond his age. He grows up and becomes an accountant (Ben Affleck) who does creative accounting for various criminal organizations.
The trailers for the movie,The Accountant were pretty much promising, and when we have a highly talented director like Gavin O’Connor, the expectations of the movie will also be high. The movie begins slowly and continues the same pattern to a certain extent. It doesn’t mean that the movie is slow paced, but it took a certain amount of time to introduce the characters. Not only Ben Affleck’s characters, all the important characters in the movie were introduced by giving a certain amount of time so that the audience would be able to connect more emotionally with the characters.
There are a lot of flashback scenes and it is through these flashback scenes, we come to know more about Ben Affleck’s character. How he and his parents dealt with his problems, how he acquired the skills, and how his character was molded. The flashback scenes were really interesting and it worked out well.
The action sequences are mind-blowing and are well choreographed. The main reason which made the action sequences much more special was the above mentioned in-depth introduction of the characters. Even though the movie comes under the action genre, I would love to call it a drama that has amazing action sequences which help the story to move forward. Every action sequence in the movie is pretty much connected to the story and characters and it makes the action scenes much more convincing.
Ben Affleck has done a great job and this is definitely one of his finest performances. He was trolled pretty much badly for his acting and he made an unbelievable comeback through Gone Girl. The movies which followed showed his transformation from the laughing stock in Hollywood to one of the finest actors in Hollywood. J. K. Simmons and Anna Kendrick were also good but their roles were not that much challenging. Jon Bernthal fans would be able to ‘The Punisher’ fighting with the ‘Batman’.
There are minor flaws in the movie as it deals with a lot of things like action, romance, comedy, drama, etc. and you could see that sometimes it fails to mesh all these things perfectly. Well, it happens. Gavin O’Conner should be appreciated for presenting the story differently from most of the movies of the same kind. The Accountant is not an out and out action movie. It is more of a character oriented movie which has excellent action sequences.
