The Accountant Review: Convoluted and Cliched

The Accountant does offer some action thrills. There are fights in close quarters and shootouts that aren’t as memorable as Bourne, but distracting enough to be entertaining. The rest, however, looks like what would happen if DC made a movie about Batman if he were an autistic bookkeeper.

The writers, as if going through a Dewey Decimal System of B-movie antics, throw in a bunch of cliches that result in an overstuffed plot. The autistic savant turned legend comes with an origins story from a broken home (complete with a training clip from an Asian master), a manic pixie dream girl love interest, a crime procedural involving a mysterious figure, an arch-nemesis who turns out to be someone from his past and corporate espionage.

The movie plays with all these plot strands and connects them through flimsy contrivances, but never commits to anything.

Naturally, the characters become stereotypes. Ben Affleck gives what the role needs but ends up as a flat uncharismatic cyborg with his own lair and a British assistant.

The movie tries to humanize Christian Wolff using a love interest, but the rest of the story renders that useless. The supporting cast also got their own screen time, but they’re forgettable figures around The Rainman, such as Jon Bernthal playing an assassin that Blofeld would have loved and Jeffrey Tambor reprising George Bluth Senior.

In the end, The accountant finishes with two ridiculous revelations. The movie also implies that we should ignore any crime as long as the perpetrator is a snitch.

The Accountant is a mediocre action thriller that will eventually pop up in HBO. It can serve as a distraction if you completely gloss over the story, plot, and characters. But why not just watch a serviceable action flick that knows what it’s supposed to do?