Movie Review: The Accountant (2016)

The Accountant (2016) directed by Gavin O'Connor

Ben Affleck is Christian Wolff, a small-town accountant who finds all sorts of loopholes for his local clients. He's also an expert forensic accountant. He can go through a company's records to find accounting errors (deliberate or accidental). He's hired by Lamar Blackburn (John Lithgow), the founder of a biotech company. An accountant in the company (Anna Kendrick) has found some discrepancies and Wolff is brought in to see if there's someone ripping off the company from inside. Blackburn doesn't know a bunch of things. First, Wolff has done similar accounting jobs for a lot of really bad people internationally. Also, he's being investigated by the Department of Treasury (headed by J. K. Simmons). Further, Wolff's great skills are credited (by the film) to his autism, which also makes him very bad at interpersonal skills. What's more, he's ex-army with crazy mad awesome shooting and fighting skills. With the high paying clients, he can afford unbelievably high-tech weaponry.

The movie has an interesting set up and lots of acting talent. The plot moves slowly, which is a problem because the plot holes and general improbability of the situation are obvious and there's too much time to think about them. The only twist that's surprising is the one that's completely unbelievable and therefore completely unpredictable. Affleck gives an okay performance that is outshined by the rest of the cast. The big let-down for this movie is the writing. I wanted a more convincing story or some faster pacing to make me notice the flaws less.

Not recommended.