The Accountant Movie Review

Article by Gabe Zia

Lazy Film Critic Movie Reviews

The Accountant

So ever since 2011's Warrior, I've been eagerly anticipated what the next film would be from Gavin O'Connor, and then as it turned out one of the films I was excited for this month was directed by him, so how about that? The Accountant is a film about a man with a high-functioning form of Autism who works as an "Accountant" of sorts for cartels, gangs, criminal organizations, but gets roped into a deeper web when one of his clients comes after him. The film stars Ben Affleck, Anna Kendrick, J.K. Simmons, Jon Bernthal, Jeffrey Tambor, and John Lithgow.

Now when I heard of a movie that was, essentially, an action film featuring an autistic man, it sounded kind of generic and a little bit out there. However, upon watching the film, it's actually pretty impressive. The action is used in a way that's intelligent and makes use of characters, it's used in a similar way that John Wick uses it, as an opportunity to characterize the centerpieces of the action sequence. Not the mention, this film actually has a pretty decent plot overall, even if its methods of telling it are pretty weird (which I'll get to).

One of the things I feel like I need to address in this review is the way this film handles its subject matter. So many times we see a very Hollywoodized take on the subject of Autism, and the reason I bring this up is that The Accountant simply doesn't do that. Despite its action-oriented premise, the way it goes about telling this story is both original and also respectful. I think a lot of it comes from the fact that the main character is autistic (as opposed to the usual Rain Man approach) which allows the film the opportunity to have a respectful and (guns aside) realistic portrayal.

However, that's not to say The Accountant is free of flaws. Yes, unfortunately for every good thing this movie does in terms of representation, this film is also very flawed in terms of storytelling. This film does this thing - and it does it more than a few times- where it will directly withhold information simply for the purpose of revealing it later. This film is non-linear in terms of its timeline, it jumps back & forth more than a few times. But whenever it jumps to the past to show a flashback, it only shows certain parts, up to the point where it becomes very clear that it's only showing certain bits so the rest can be a revelation later on. And once you know that, you start to think ahead, and then all of a sudden the film becomes very predictable. It's unfortunate because this film has so much going for it that its major flaws in story structure bring it down a fair bit.

Final Rating
I want to make this clear, I am still recommending you watch The Accountant. As far as movies this year go it's honestly one of the better ones, and despite its flaws it manages to tell an original story with respectful representation and some really great action. I'd say, go check out The Accountant, it really couldn't hurt.