THE
ACCOUNTANT
In many ways, The Accountant might qualify as the most unlikely movie of the
year, at least so far (there’s always plenty of time left for more comic book
flicks, complete with the usual complement of shootouts, fireworks and computer
generated imaging). To begin with, the
notion of a film about an accountant, hardly the most exciting or glamorous of
professions, hardly seems a promising cinematic subject. In addition, though responsible for numerous
suspicious activities, as Hollywood’s own history of “creative” accounting demonstrates,
accountants, unlike lawyers, have flown under the radar, barely attracting
public attention of any kind; they probably still labor under the image of a
numbers nerd wearing a green eye shade cooking the books for someone.
Nevertheless, the new movie makes both
the process and the protagonist fascinating.
Ben Affleck plays the title character, Christian Wolff, who owns a tiny
office in a drab strip mall in Illinois; the first time we see him at work, he
helps a couple with their income taxes, saving their farm from
foreclosure. Like some superhero,
however, under various pseudonyms in another identity he performs much more
lucrative and interesting work for a variety of questionable clients—Arab
despots, Mafia bosses, terrorist networks—apparently helping them to hide and
launder their money. The job that functions
as the central situation of the film involves his specialty, forensic accounting,
investigating the disappearance of many millions of dollars from a firm that
manufactures prostheses.
As Wolff pursues clues to the loss, the
Treasury Department begins its own investigation of his activities, based on
footage of his meetings with various international clients and their own
forensic accounting. Much of the film’s
appeal derives from two parallel
investigative tracks, one showing Wolff’s gradual entanglement in the terribly
violent outcome of his work, the other the pursuit by the Treasury agent
Marybeth Medina (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) and her boss, Ray King (J. K. Simmons). The sheer process, the details of the ways in
which the two alternating quests work, complete with computer analysis, videotape
recordings, criminal histories, the specific methods of research and the
related back stories of the important individuals combine to create a most
compelling narrative.
Those back stories enrich much of the
picture’s surface, fleshing out characters, solving some mysteries, and ultimately
tying all the people together. Christian
Wolff is a high functioning autistic, as he tells Dana Cummings (Anna Kendrick),
the young woman who first blew the whistle on the missing money, and who
complicates his life in some unexpected ways.
The movie shows flashbacks to his childhood, which explain his
personality and behavior and provide substantial evidence for the peculiar skills
he brings to his profession beyond his knowledge of financial wheeling and
dealing.
Maintaining a stoic deadpan throughout
the movie, speaking mostly in a clipped monotone, and steadfastly avoiding any
affect, Ben Affleck accomplishes a kind of tour
de force in the role of the autistic accountant, an odd achievement in a
thriller to begin with, and a difficult task for any actor. In a couple of moments his disability even
creates comedy, which of course means nothing to him, since his emotional range
cannot stretch that far.
In showing the histories of several
other characters the film links all of them together, either through the
commonality of their professions, relationships, or mere chance; it actually
suggests that its world in fact operates on a series of apparently coincidental
events that connect everybody, most of them finding a nexus in the accountant
himself. Its final sequences solve a
continuing puzzle that generates most of the violent action recurring throughout
its length, drawing in almost everyone, especially its protagonist. The script demonstrates quite a lot of
ingenuity in those connections between apparently unrelated incidents and
people and its resolution of some surprising mysteries. Without a great deal of publicity and despite
its cryptic title, The Accountant
apparently is winning audiences and, surprisingly, turns out to be one of the
most exciting movies of the current season.
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