The Accountant Film Review

My first impression of this film on leaving the cinema after the end credits rolled was, ‘What an enjoyable 90 minutes that was’. This just goes to show that having to turn off my smartwatch during a film really destroys any hope that I can accurately note it’s length. The Accountant manages to make a running time of 128 minutes fly by quite happily.

Although to be fair, Inferno did make me feel like I’d just visited whichever circle of hell was reserved for the team who thought up the Zootropolis sloth ‘gag’ (I hesitate to call it that as it implies that it’s funny). I’m pretty sure those people will regret this after their five-year-olds make them watch that part of the film for the tenth time and they begin to get some inkling of how awful it was to be trapped in it through repeated trailer showings.

Certainly, I would put it alongside Hoffman’s portrayal of Raymond (Rainman) and Christian Clemenson’s efforts with Jerry Espenson (Boston Legal). I’m sure each of these presents different aspects of Aspergers and autism with varying degrees of success and the unifying characteristic here is that all of these characters have some savant-like capabilities. Raymond can count matches and cards, Jerry has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the law and Affleck’s Christian Wolff is an amazing chartered accountant. With guns.

As if the thought of being audited wasn’t enough, imagine if that person were the accounting equivalent of Tom Cruise in the firm. You’re not really expecting your accounting help to be quite so capable when it comes time to dispatch them in the most permanent fashion possible. Of course, the question is, who would want to do such a thing? Who indeed? Clearly, there has to be a profit motive.

Certainly, that would be the end of it in a typical film but remember, this one managed to attract Affleck. He’s a serious director now; as if writing Good Will Hunting and winning an Oscar for the script didn’t give you an idea of his emotional intelligence. I defy you to watch Williams and Damon go through those lines and not choke up. Go on, I dare you, you monster!

There’s a sub-plot in which J. Jonah Jame…. I’m sorry, J.K. Simmons and his Justice department minion (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) pursue this terrible human being who works for cartels, terrorists and assassins as their bookkeeper. They both turn in great performances and do an admirable job of fleshing out the history of the main character without straying too far into exposition dumps.

It actually plays out rather well and the use of flashbacks and characters with different perspectives conceals the twists and turns of the plots well enough to enable full enjoyment of the film. Sure, if you are determined to work out what will happen you might well be able to do so. I’d suggest, though, if you had to turn off about two-thirds of your brain to let the plot of Inferno go by and just enjoy it, you only have to turn off about a quarter here. Another comparison would be the highly repetitive Bourne films in which, no matter how many ex-colleagues he kills, the new ones still think it’d be a good idea to go after him rather than just send him a letter saying ‘Honestly, we’re leaving you alone now but here’s a list of bad guys we’d love you to kill if you get bored.’