The Accountant is effectively playing the same game that Soderbergh did with Haywire or that Fincher did with Gone Girl. The plotting and screenplay on this thing are as ludicrous as they come, but Gavin O'Connor has just as intense of an eye for action as the former, and the true skills of the latter to take The Accountant from just a distraction to being a more amazing Batman movie...than the Batman movie that actually just came out. That comparison doesn’t come lightly. Not only does The Accountant star Ben Affleck, who is currently playing the caped crusader in the DCEU, it’s also about an autistic, mild-mannered accountant who has a secret lair and can brutally beat anyone who he believes to be doing something wrong, determined to save those who need to be saved, while also blending into the real world. Oh, and also (spoilers!!!!) he has an “Oracle” like figure aka a so-called “woman with a computer who finds stuff out for him and provides the cops with information” to help him on his missions. Oh, and he has been contacting J.K. Simmons as a government agent of incredible merits helping Simons deal out justice after Simmons witnessed him killing a few men. Now, guess who Simmons might play in the DCEU. Commissioner Gordon, the cop who helps Batman smite his enemies. Now that’s all just connections, and not really a review, but intertextuality really is a big part of the enjoyment fact of The Accountant. As a film it’s kind of flaccid but engaging feeling bared down enough for the audience to buy the ridiculousness at its core, but with the added perk that Christian Wolff ( The Accountant) is basically Batman is actually enough to sway me towards saying that this is actually kind of a good movie. There’s plenty of other things other than this that bring The Accountant up. Ben Affleck is one of the best actors now, a truly fascinating performer. There’s a kindness to the coldness of the delicately played autism Affleck infuses into this role that makes Wolff startlingly empathetic, and because a righteous man murdering bad guys to save the one’s he loves in glorious “movie violence” is always fun, so is The Accountant. There’s a beautiful feeling of hysterical fear that comes with the bad guys realizing that they are wrong in not thinking that Wolff is formidable, and it almost becomes a particularly exciting thing to see Wolff dole out punches and gunshots with the precision of say John Wick mainly because of his compulsive need to perfectly do everything. Affleck really is good at conveying that and his little bursts of happiness or kindness are a lovely sight. The rest of the cast is of a surprising caliber including a wise-cracking Jon Bernthal, playing a funny version of The Punisher, and Anna Kendrick being finally compelling in a movie where you’re actually supposed to take her seriously. Gavin O'Connor is also just really good at the type of “R” rated violence going on here. Sometimes the lighting of action is a little low but it’s all still hard-hitting, even funny near the ending as a plot twist turns Bernthal into a sniveling mess trying to appeal to Wolff who is just not really able to have any of it. It’s actually kind of funny. The realm of belief here is stretched pretty thin to the point where none of the movie coheres, but that doesn’t mean it can not be awesome. It just can’t be great. Ben Affleck, Anna Kendrick, Jon Bernthal and Gavin O’Connor all but force The Accountant into being an entertaining action movie, and they succeed pretty frequently. Also, BATMAN!!!. The Accountant gets an 8 out of 10.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Archive
December 2017
CategoriesAuthorHello welcome to FilmAnalyst. My name is Stephen Tronicek, and I really like movies. This is a way to get my opinions out to people. Thank you for visiting. |