Opening Friday: The Accountant! I saw this prior to wasting my money when this opens later this week. Quick, skip this movie. Tell your CPA friends NOT to see this movie. Enter at your own risk …
The Accountant (Ben Affleck, Anna Kendrick, Jon Bernthal, J.K. Simmons, John Lithgow, Jeffrey Tambor) – Oy, what a mess of a movie! Yes, there is a lot of killing, especially shots to the head. There is a fair amount of suspense. But otherwise, this is a vacuous, implausible, badly acted, ill-conceived crapfest of a film.
Ben Affleck stars as Christian Wolff, an emotionless CPA who was an autistic savant as a kid. His early life plays a major part in his adult life where now he “uncooks the books” of some of the worst guys in the world when he isn’t filling out 1040s for his rural neighbors (oh, spare me!). I misspoke: he also spends 20 minutes each night flagellating himself to the hardest of hard rock and flashing lights. I saw this movie with a pediatric neurologist (my son), hoping to get insight into how many of his patients grew up to beat their legs with a bat to the sound of heavy metal music. But alas, he wasn’t providing any insight, citing HIPAA regulations.
Anyway, Wolff combines his math skills with his “no mercy” martial arts training foisted upon him and his brother by their tough-love military father to become the most boring badass ever. Somewhere in this morass he consults with a company that makes revolutionary robotics. He finds financial wrongdoing but, before he can tell the CEO (John Lithgow, who is wasted here), the chief culprits are killed by killers as brutal as him. It is on this assignment where he meets the sweet cost accountant, Dana (Anna Kendrick), who first discovered the financial discrepancy. To say that there is no chemistry between these two is an understatement. Anna is miscast, and Ben can’t act so this is a match made in heaven. There is actually no need for Kendrick’s character but that isn’t the worst part of the film.
The worst is the side story about the FBI department director (played by the wonderful J.K. Simmons, who is wasted here) who blackmails one of his agents to hunt down the mystery man he calls “The Accountant” who is pictured with all of the bad guys in the world. This side story is totally unneeded – TOTALLY!! Or is the worst the incongruous meetings with the old man in the prison (played by Jeffrey Tambor, who is wasted here) with whom Wolff consults about how to launder money.
I don’t know. This film was just a bad idea. Actually, this is a Bourne wannabe but Ben is no Matt Damon. I wish Ben had had coffee with his buddy to ask him how to play this part. Bourne is cold but has depth, emotion, and gets the girl; Wolff is emotionless, efficient and doesn’t get the girl.
It isn’t that the movie is boring or unenjoyable. There is plenty to like for my friend, Denis, who just likes shoot-‘em-ups. But this is just a badly written, badly executed, poorly-acted, superfluous mess.