The Accountant

What do you get when you bring Batfleck more into the realm of The Big Short? Well, The Accountant, apparently. This movie is all over the place in terms of thematic stability, with way too much attempted dynamism plaguing every character. Is it really necessary for the autistic mathematical super-genius to also be trained in martial arts and heavy weaponry? Probably not. It's a mess, but at least it's a hot mess.

Christian Wolff (Ben Affleck) is an on-the-spectrum savant working as an accountant for some of the baddest bads in the crime world. As a treasury agent (J.K. Simmons) starts searching out his identity, Christian takes on a legitimate client in a robotics  company with conveniently way too much to hide. Obviously, this creates room for an emotional connection with the company's lowly assistant Dana (Anna Kendrick), because what would an action-thriller be without a love interest? Oh, and there's a hitman (Jon Bernthal) chasing him, but don't worry too much about that.

The Accountant plays with a lot, and sadly, it does not do so delicately. From the opening scenes, we are heavily handed a bunch of disjointed plot stories that we spend the majority of the film trying to reconnect. Jarring flashbacks and out of place monologues are apparently the way to go to create 'character depth' these days. Every character has some motivations or back story that are supposed to make us think "Hey, maybe he's not a bad guy, maybe he's just misunderstood". Sadly, this moral ambiguity seems to lose its punch when applied to every single character in the movie.

While his introduction and validation are a bit abrupt, Christian Wolff springs to life through Affleck, who comfortably portrays the mannerisms of autism in a subtle yet effective way. Affleck seems to do all he can with a clunky and overloaded character. It's probably best to blame the writers for this one if you dislike his performance. The real standout as far as acting is concerned is Jon Bernthal's Brax, who is sadly underutilisied and seemingly forgotten as the plot unfolds. And Anna Kendrick just plays Anna Kendrick. 

While the movie is fun, it is definitely hindered by its drive to tick all the boxes. It is hard to strive to be a message movie for people with autism when you also make the lead character a kickass sharpshooter and martial arts expert. The Accountant could have bypassed the guns and fight scenes completely and just had a detailed, dialogue-driven, A Beautiful Mind-esque drama. But instead, we are left with this identity crisis of an action flick. While it surely is cool to see an autistic character explored on-screen as a bit of a badass, is this really the best way to go about representing people with disabilities? This may not be the movie people with autism deserve, but until that one arrives, at least it's a bit of fun.