The Accountant: Movie Review

"The Accountant" starts pretty slow for an action thriller. The film takes its time to uncover its secrets but when everything is finally revealed and laid out, it was mostly worth it. While there are jaw-dropping moments and flashes of brilliance, the film's scattered narrative and disorienting flashbacks proved to be its biggest deficits.

Christian Wolff (Ben Affleck) is a math savant who has an affinity for numbers more than people. Behind the cover of a small-town CPA office, he works as a freelance accountant for some of the world’s most dangerous criminal organizations. With the Treasury Department’s Crime Enforcement Division, run by Ray King (J.K. Simmons), starting to close in, Christian takes on a legitimate client: a robotics company where an accounting clerk (Anna Kendrick) has discovered a discrepancy. But as Christian uncooks the books and gets closer to the truth, the "safe" client is turning out to be Christian's deadliest yet.

When "The Accountant" stayed true to its action-oriented genes, the film was splendid film to experience. The stoic yet talented Accountant was a deadly killer much akin to John Wick in terms of efficiency and brutality. The mix of Pencak Silat and his unusual gun fight style were exceptionally fun. But "The Accountant" was some action and mostly narrative and that's where problems started to arise. First, the narrative's flashbacks were mostly confusing and jarring. We found ourselves having a hard time understanding the back story of the Accountant and the first half was extremely frustrating on that regard. Second, the film really tried hard to add more depth into its other characters but accomplishing none. For example, the film could have used less or even none of the Treasury Department side story. Narrative concerns really hampered "The Accountant". We expected a whole lot more from the film. While the action sequences were inventive and fun, the film needed more polish to be more than your average action-thriller film.

Rating: 3 and a half reels





Why you should watch it:
- action scenes were great

Why you shouldn't watch it:
- the narrative was scattered and disorienting