Film Review - The Accountant (2016)

The Accountant is directed by Gavin O'Connor who made Warrior in 2011 and stars Ben Affleck as Christian Wolff an Accountant who lives with high functioning Autism and cooks the book for some of the most sinister people on the planet but one day he is asked to look at a robotics company who might be leaking cash but this is no ordinary Accountant as he also has a particular set of skills.

When I learned about Ben's character being Autistic in this movie I have to be honest and say that I did not want to see this movie mainly because I have never really seen people with Autism done justice on film I mean you had Mercury Rising with Bruce Willis and Alec Baldwin which was a silly thriller and also of course you had Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man and that for me has sort of become the primary image most people might have when it comes to Autistic people in that his character has it so severely that he requires around the clock care.

But at that same time I did think to myself "Simon this is a dark action thriller which you love to go and see and Ben Affleck has yet to steer you wrong" especially since Gone Baby Gone in 2007 which was his debut as a director so could this trend continue.

Yes it certainly could as I really really enjoyed this movie not only for its great action but also its very generous amounts of heart but before I delve more into those points I want to talk about O'Connor's direction which is very good here, his use of editing and sound is very good, his direction is very solid and his ability to get performances out of his very reliable cast is good as well, John Lithgow, Anna Kendrick, Jon Bernthal, Jeffery Tambor and JK Simmonds are very good here and put in solid reliable work.

But this is straight up Ben Affleck's film and he delivers simply fantastic work here, if you have seen Autism up close then many of the small little touches his character has (the unorthodox measures he does to relax each night, the way he blows his hands, the very ordered and structured way he has his life) will sound spot on here and they most certainly are, he also has this very black and straight laced sense of humour that will not work for some but for me had me laughing quite a bit and also the way he tries to talk to Kendrick's character is very sweet because you can see that he's trying to reach out and talk to her like a normal person but he cannot and at times he gets very frustrated when things don't go quite right.

And also Ben's character's father deserves some praise here, the way he handles his son's condition as well as how he tries to teach Mr Wolff how to handle it himself is not done in an overprotective way or a patronising way or a way that makes him feel demeaning or useless or a burden to his family he gives him all the skills and tools he'll need to lead a normal life and to defend himself when necessary.

I give everyone a lot of praise for that here and Ben's action scenes are amazing because the way he takes people down is pretty scary I would not want this guy coming after me because I would be dead 2 times over before my corpse hit the floor and the sound design used in those scenes definitely had me jumping in my seat once or twice.

The Accountant is the kind of genre film we don't really see much anymore, an action film that takes its time to tell a story and really try to have some sort of heart as well as violent action and on that front I give it my highest recommendation, 4 and a half out of 5.