‘The Accountant 2’ (review)

The Accountant 2 is a quality sequel to a perfectly good original outing.

I hadn’t seen the first The Accountant until last month when I decided on a whim to watch it while at home on a random day off.

I had not known anything about the film other than it was Ben Affleck as a “specialist” who cleans up the “messes” left behind by organizations. I thought he was just a regular hitman, a “cleaner” á la Jean Reno’s character in Luc Besson’s 1990 La Femme Nikita.

I was surprised to find out Affleck was playing a mathematical savant who also has autism. I was worried about how he was going to represent autistic individuals in his portrayal. While at no point was I offended by his performance, I didn’t think it was a wholly necessary detail to add. Also, I do not have autism, so please take that into account when I say this.

What I will talk about is the filmcraft of this sequel to the 2016 film, which I enjoyed overall.

In the first film, Affleck’s character, Christian Wolff, is a certified public accountant who is one part Raymond from Rain Man, one part John Nash from A Beautiful Mind, and one part John Wick from, well, John Wick. He was trained by his father, a PsyOps officer in the military throughout the 80s and 90s, to acclimate himself to the triggers he would encounter in life rather than avoid them, to better equip him to handle them when they get activated.

He also trained both Christian and his brother Braxton in various martial arts and weapons handling around the world as they lived a nomadic life of constant change and upheaval in hopes that this style of living would also help Christian adjust more easily to what life may throw at him. It seems to have worked.

He is now a forensic accountant who works for many nefarious groups around the world.

His job is to “uncook” books for these various groups. This means he is tasked to find out who might be embezzling funds from them. By delving into their financial records and using his particular set of skills, he figures out what record-keeping may have been fudged to steal money from them by individuals inside their operation.

The Accountant 2 begins with the death of one of Christian’s old acquaintances from the first film and the cryptic message he leaves behind written on his forearm. It is only the U.S. Treasury Deputy Director Marybeth Medina, played again by Cynthia Addai-Robinson, who understands the meaning of this and whom she must but doesn’t want to call.

Meanwhile, our faithful Accountant, Christian, is preparing for his most nerve-wracking mission to date. He is about to negotiate the world of romance at a speed dating event. To better the odds, he has used his particular talents to game the system to make himself more attractive to the women seeking a life partner. It goes about as well as you can imagine.

As Deputy Director Medina investigates further the conspiracy surrounding the mysterious death, she unwittingly uncovers a network of intrigue that she and now Christian realize may be too big for them both alone. Christian calls in a favor to his assassin and contract killer brother, Braxton, marvelously played by Jon Bernthal, to aid in their mission. After Medina is put out of commission, it is up to the two brothers to track down the bad guys, stop the baddies, and save the day.

Like is stated before, I liked this entry to, what I am expecting to be at least a trilogy if not more, Accountant film series.

Overall, the action is more intense and involved, the story overall is interesting, the humor is solid, and the stakes are more personal and higher for everyone involved.

What I like most about the film is the building of the relationship between the two brothers, Christian and Braxton.

Affleck and Bernthal have great chemistry. Affleck’s dry, deadpan and Bernthal’s almost over-the-top charismatic deliveries make the dynamic a treat to watch. The banter between the two is often laugh-out-loud funny. You can tell that Braxton loves his brother. He would die for him if he had to to protect him, even if he doesn’t fully understand Christian and what he has. And Christian, though challenged to express certain emotions, constantly tries to do so, often failing, but eventually gets it through to Braxton in the end that he cares.

The story of The Accountant 2 is more involved than the first, dealing with all too current issues of immigration, forced slavery, and deportations, all exposed through the uncovering of who murdered Christian’s associate.

The web becomes more and more intricate and dangerous, which leads to his calling Braxton in to help him in the end.  The editing is tighter, and the camerawork is top-notch. You can follow the action sequences easily, and the weapons handling of the two brothers is like a well-oiled clock.

I will also mention, without too much spoiling, that a couple of reveals a little later on in the film made me tilt my head like my dog trying to decide what the hell is going on and if I should be excited or disappointed. I don’t want to say it outright, but I think you will know what I mean when you see it. I’m still processing it. I know that with sequels, filmmakers, and to be fair, because of audience expectation, think they need to “up the ante” and make every subsequent film in a series bigger, better, faster. Look at the Bonds series, The Wick films, the goddamn Fast and the Ridiculous… I mean Furious Saga.

So I guess in the grand scheme of things, the reveal of how Christian gets his intel shouldn’t have surprised me too, too much, but here we are.

I know the 2016 predecessor has had a lot of controversy surrounding the fact that writer Bill Dubuque and director Gavin O’Connor, as well as Ben Affleck, had chosen to portray the character of Christian Wolff as a high-functioning autistic individual with a rare mathematical savant aspect. He is a person who is also trained in martial arts and the handling of weaponry as a killer/assassin.

I have recently read a series of articles from people who had lauded the choice as bringing the condition to the mainstream and handling it with honor.  The people with this view thought it was a respectful portrayal in its handling of autism, with a recognition and regard for people who have it. At least as much as Hollywood was capable of doing so.

I have also read the other side of the argument from individuals with autism, as well as advocates for people with autism who say that this portrayal of a person with violent tendencies only reinforces the stereotype that autistic people are violent or tend to be violent. I see where they are coming from. An additional argument, which I partially agree with, is that a person who is not autistic can not truthfully portray a person with autism because they will never be able to get into their brains and know what it is like to live with the disorder. That spending a few months with them to study them and their mannerisms will never be adequate enough to appropriately portray them in films.

This argument is 100% valid.

As a person who does not have autism, as far as I know, and is NOT a professional whose job it is to care for people with it and study the disorder itself, I am absolutely staying out of that argument. I will leave that to the people who are far more qualified to discuss that than I.

That being said, I did find it to be a strange lane to pick when writing this character that they would choose to specifically make the main character autistic.

Not that it was a bad choice, in theory, because representation matters, but a concerning one, given the unfounded connection that people have made associating autism with violence and violent natures. Not only has this been proven untrue it has been an albatross around the neck of a group of individuals already saddled with many negative stereotypes and baseless ideas.

Overall, The Accountant 2 is a well-written, fast-paced, slightly thoughtful, and humorous popcorn action film with a heart. Well worth the price of admission and worth it for the performance by Jon Bernthal alone.

It is as good as the original and maybe just eeks out ahead of it if for nothing else than the banter between the two brothers and their relationship.

*  *  *  *  *  *
Produced by Ben Affleck, Lynette Howell Taylor, Mark Williams
Written by Bill Dubuque
Based on Characters by Bill Dubuque
Directed by Gavin O’Connor
Starring Ben Affleck, Jon Bernthal, Cynthia Addai-Robinson,
Daniella Pineda, J. K. Simmons