The relationship between autism and cinema as always been a little awkward. Sure, Dustin Hoffman may have nabbed an Oscar for his work in Rain Man, but the continuing insistence movies have that all people existing on the spectrum has some sort of hidden, mental superpower can not only be misleading, but often lead to the weirdest of plots; who else remembers the Predator trying to weaponize the condition during The Predator in 2018?
However, in 2016, another movie had come along that suggested, among other things, that people living with autism would make pretty badass killing machines in the form of Gavin O’Connor’s The Accountant, an action thriller that may have been what you would have gotten if Rain Man had been remade by North87 Productions.
Anyone ready for Pain Man?
The name Christian Wolff is an alias, but the man who uses it leads something of a fascinating life. You see, while “Christian” is autistic, he’s also an extremely talented forensic accountant who not only has a savant-level grasp of math, but he uses his gift to uncook the books of numerous criminal organisations in order to track down thefts within their infastructure. This has put him on the radar of Treasury Director Ray King who, with his retirement looming, is desperate to uncover the identity of this “Accountant” for reason that soon appear more personal than he’s letting on.
As he sets talented data analyst Marybeth Medina on the case of locating this shadowy figure, the man himself get his latest assignment when he goes to sift through fifteen years of the jumbled financial records of Living Robotics to try and untangle a discrepancy discovered by in-house accountant Dana Cimmings and somehow manages to uncover a sizable embezzlement after only one night. However, unbeknownst to everyone, some major feathers have been ruffled somewhere and in an effort to cover their tracks, the guilty party hires a professional hitman and his crew to start tying up loose ends which also means Christian and Dana are due a bullet.
Oh wait, didn’t I mention? Due to having a father who works in military Psyops, Christian is also a ludicrously focused killing machine who is a crack shot with a sniper rifle, can fight like a maniac and has a mental disposition that leaves him feeling extreme discomfort if a job is left unfinished.
Switching from the divison of numbers to the subtraction of the life of any gun-totting thug who dares try and take him out, Christian races to save Dana from a similar fate and ultimately strives to take out the man behind the contracts on their lives.
However, that’s going to be slightly difficult when you realise that Christian and the hitman hired to take him out have a past together which ultimately makes things more complicated than algebra.
First off, I don’t know where each of you stand when it comes to the treatment of neurodiversity in movies, but despite the fact that the whole film is centred around Ben Affleck “doing” autism, there’s a genuine sense that The Accountant wants to do right by its chosen subject. Whether it succeeds, I guess, relies mostly on how familiar you are with the condition, but while we have yet another film that seems to continue the thread that neurodiverse automatically equals genius, Ben Affleck’s high functioning main character mercifully skips the actor resorting to any tics in his performance other than an extreme avoidance of eye contact and a penchant for mumbling that’ll no doubt have you activating subtitles in no time.
However, truth be told, The Accountant ends up feeling a little run of the mill as its slow pace means that the steady unraveling of the rather sizable backstory tends to drag noticeably. On top of that, the actual main conspiracy isn’t actually that hard to unravel and feels a bit simplistic in comparison to the gargantuan mental athletics our socially challenged lead is capable of.
While Affleck tackles the main character well, it smiles also mean that his stoic, somewhat awkwardly sullen Christian means that the actor his has to turn his natural charm way down in favour of blank expressions and nervous eye darting. As a result, we never get a true feeling of who Christian is as a person and some viewers with either find it awesome, or just merely frustrating. Fairing beter is a surprisingly glitzy supporting cast that contains J.K. Simmons, John Lithgow, Jean Smart and Jeffrey Tambour who all do their duty as reliably as always.
However, the true standouts of the cast prove to be Anna Kendrick and Jon Bernthal and the latter’s animalistic charm and swagger gives the apparent villain of the piece the moxy he needs to be a worthy opponent to our hero. But despite having the physical goods to play the part, it’s his more emotional capabilities that manage to carry a very familiar, late in the day twist (you may guess it, you may not) and elevate it into something that feels fresh and even rather humerous. Elsewhere, you’d think that a dark, brooding thriller would be the last place to find the impossibly perky force of nature known as Anna Kendrick, but you’d be wrong as the actress managed to curb her more overt comedic tendencies to create an everywoman character who still fits within the structure of the film. Yes, she still acts confused when the shit hits the fan, but despite looking as adorable as a depowered Power Puff girl, it’s apparent why Christian is drawn to her even before the bullets start flying.
However, while it makes for a pretty easy two hours of viewing, there’s nothing about The Accountant’s figures that actually stand out. The action is slick and brutal, but so where about a dozen other movies out the same year and the gloomy cinematography and deliberate pace may create the required mood, but while I was engaged in the story, I was never teetering on the edge of my seat for it, even when the final showdown pulls that rug out from under you to amusing effect.
In fact, when you step back and take a long hard look at the film, there’s a sense it wanted to be a bit more unhinged than its deadly serious tone would suggest – after all, there’s an actual flashback that reveals that Christian’s father trained his boys how to fight by flying them out to a foreign country and getting them to brawl (unsuccessfully) with a trained martial artist while still kids. Elsewhere, Christian trains to acclimate himself to his condition by having Affleck flash lights, blare heavy metal and bash his shin with a wooden club like if Steve-O from Jackass has suddenly become a self harming vigilante.
Certainly watchable, this 2016 thriller tries to do right by its strange premise, but some of its weirder aspects fails to gel with the more somber ones. Add a whole bunch of scattered flashbacks that wrap things up as neatly as a chimp wrapping Christmas presents, and The Accountant is one gritty sum-solver that sometimes struggles to add up.
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