THE ACCOUNTANT (2016)

Action/ Crime/ Drama
Directed By: Gavin O’ Connor​
Starring: Ben Affleck, Anna Kendricks, J.K. Simmons
​My Rating: 8 out of 10

It seems almost unfathomable to me that a film with a name as boring and uninspiring like this could be anything but a snooze fest. Looking closely behind the name on the movie poster, there appears to be a rather cool looking geezer with a fairly large gun. Hope continues when I read this film features none other than current Batman himself, Ben Affleck, who for the most part lately, seems to be getting his film choices spot on. Though it must be said with the failures of Batman v Superman it's not been all rosy for Ben this year. His portrayal however, did at least seem to be unanimously thought of as rather good in a shit movie. So hope led me in and thank God it did.

So let's try and entice you all in too. Yes it's about an accountant, but it is a little more interesting than it sounds. He is basically a maths genius who looks over dodgy accounts of anyone who can't go to a regular accounting firm. Think of the bad lads of this world in their gangs suddenly realising their criminal empires are haemorrhaging money, they call this guy in who can plunge into their accounts quickly and find their leak. Clearly working with dangerous people means he has had to use more than one alias and this has led to “the accountant” being a bit of a mystery to the government agencies following him. So while they are trying to track this guy in half the movie, he is working a case that suddenly gets a bit agro in the other half and the balance was PERFECT.

Affleck is fantastic as the lead Christian Wolff, he’s quirky but completely engaging throughout, nailing the subtleties of being an extremely intelligent guy suffering with autism in this very odd job role. The sincerity of how it is played comes across very well, which means this movie packs more than just a decent slice of action, there isn't the obvious romantic hook up that some action films seem to crowbar in either and I think this gives the film much more depth. Whilst having a lot of tender moments between those all important action scenes (and they were some awesome action scenes), clearly Ben had brought a little more over from his Batfleck character to his fight scenes as these were brutal and brilliant.

Alongside Ben was Anna Kendrick, who up till now I had thought was basically a bad rom-com waiting to happen. But in this she is excellent, as stated the relationship between her and Affleck, despite being “the love attraction” of the film, wasn't done in the stereotypical way and it's actually refreshing to see two people who clearly like each other but struggle to let their feelings known, that wouldn't have suited the characters or the film and the relationship looked more genuine because of it.

Elsewhere we had good performances from J.K. Simmons and Cynthia Addai-Robinson who were the lead investigators looking for the accountant and once more I think this gave the film another edge. This was much more than your average action movie, it had detective drama thrown in and with the subject of autism showered over the character of Wolff there was also some decent slices of drama to tug on, as you see how he dealt with his behaviour from an early age and also how others around him, such as his brother, dealt with it too. It was also great to see Jon Bernthal being the films bad ass which I hadn't seen since the last season of Daredevil finished.

It's wrong to call this just an action movie, because it really did hold much more to it than your throwaway Statham-esque brain farts we are usually showered with in this genre and although the end plot twist was a little predictable, I cant hold that against writer Bill Dubuque as I thoroughly enjoyed the whole thing from start to finish. I have to also commend the director on another job well done. Gavin O’ Connor was responsible for “Warrior” in 2011 and that is now often listed as one of the best modern movies of the last couple of decades. It had the same feel as that with its tender side stories, the bun around my juicy action burger and this burger was so bloody tasty I think everyone will want to devour. The Accountant won't be winning any Oscars, but in my view it will earn its place alongside Warrior in that list of great modern movies. Time will tell but for now, go ahead and grab that burger!