The Accountant Review

The Accountant is a human drama gift-wrapped nicely in a story about an acoustic assassin with a natural tendency for high-end math. It's a redeeming film for Ben Affleck, who gets his own back after some fairly average performances in the recent past.

Christian Wolff (Ben Affleck) is a talented accountant hired by a firm to look into some financial discrepancies they find suspicious. Even as he goes about his rather mundane job in a not-so-mundane manner, things begin to go out of hand - Wolff's real interests as a forensic accountant and full-time assassin threaten to hamper his financial investigations at the firm.

He's fired, but not before making a rare emotional connect with Dana Cummings (Ana Kendrick) and characteristically deciding to complete the task he'd taken up, of investigating the financial fraud - gun in hand. He follows the trail till it reaches his own doorstep, with the authorities hot on his heels. The film finally ends on such a sorry bro-loves-bro note that it makes you want to cry yourself; all that financial gee whiz turns out to be a family melodrama in the end, and it's just not fair. There's something about an evil mother abandoning Wolff when he was little and his father dying at her funeral - it really gets too much to take. There's even an old cop who gives up on the chase and lets Wolff get away scot-free.

The Accountant is an "experience film" - it's a good enough movie-going experience, and keeps you puzzled while you're in the theatre the first time round. Its climax however is a let-down, and it's not the kind of movie you might want to watch more than once. It pulls its thrills from fancy arms and ammo, with Ben Affleck looking very intense in his action scenes - so if that rocks your boat, then this one might well make your day.

Ana Kendrick plays the sadly awkward Dana Cummings in this film. She's meant to be loved - by the autistic god that is The Christian Wolff. But Ben Affleck is nice to watch as Wolff, and even nicer to watch when cast opposite Kendrick's weirdo Cummings - so maybe this film might interest some, after all.

The Accountant is well-directed by Gavin O' Connor - it actually keeps you hooked even in the bad parts. The cinematography (Seamus Mc Garvey) makes the narration slick, and the editing (Richard Pearson) helps the film.

Watch this one with friends, if you must watch it at all - it will make the experience better.