The Accountant (2016)

This review/personal recounting of a filmwatching experience hybrid was written a couple hours after seeing The Accountant in theatres with four college friends during the fall semester of our sophomore year. My overall rating was 2.5 stars out of a possible 4. On my scale, 2.5 stars qualifies as "decent."

This is the first Rated R [live action] film I saw in theatres that was not four stars. I had previously seen Argo (2012), Silver Linings Playbook (2012), American Hustle (2013), The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014), and Trumbo (2015). The potential of breaking this streak was difficult for me. On the one hand, I felt as though it was pretty unique being so highly selective with the R-rated films I'd seen in theatres. On the other, this was a similar situation to Sausage Party (2016), wherein it was a movie I had wanted to see since watching the first trailers while being certain that it would break my streak. (Sausage Party is why I included "live action" distinction in the first sentence, because it is an animated Rated R movie.)

But in a way, I had already broken my streak, I just needed a different movie for

my streak to actually feel over. Technically, my streak really ended with Birdman because, upon intially seeing it in theatres, I thought that it was three stars; it was only after its DVD release and my Mom bringing it home that I re-evaluated it as a four star film. But I digress now from the personal meaning of my streak because I watched this movie with four close college friends who all legitimately wanted to go. So in a way, this gives the movie new sentimental meaning to me, and I plan on cherishing that experience for a long, long time.

Now to the movie – I should have recorded my thoughts when I talked with one of my friends on our walk to VWK on campus. I have since taken a three hour nap, so some of that critique is hazy in my recollection process. First off, I need to mention that Anna Kendrick did not have as much character development nor screen time as I (and my friends) assumed, nor did she have a connection to J. K. Simmons' character, which I had assumed based on the trailer. As an Anna Kendrick and J. K. Simmons fan, this was fairly disappointing. With the rest of the movie, it was a blast to watch (despite lacking many blasts in its action scenes).

It was unnervingly funny, with one particular moment where Christian (Ben Affleck) casually waves goodbye to a hospitable couple after killing two men on their farm caused the entire theatre to suddenly burst into laughter. The humor is the same humor from Rain Man: an autistic mathematics savant who is so direct in his life and his actions that his down-to-earthness is just funny to the casual observer.

The film editing should have probably been my leading comment: it was phenomenal. To me, film editing is the sixth biggest type of Oscar (following in order Picture, Screenwriting, Acting, Directing, and Cinematography) and a filmmaking aspect I typically make a major focus of my critiques. The Accountant has been edited very, very well. Rick Pearson is a fine editor, with other movies he directly edited or shared responsibility for including Get Smart (2008), Quantum of Solace (2008), and Iron Man 2 (2010). All three of these films feature precision editing perfectly in line with the action and quickness of their scenes.

Now for the struggles of The Accountant. (I really need to wrap this up so I can try to get some more sleep.) There weren't any terrific acting performances, but I would say Simmons did the best work out of anyone. In rogerebert.com’s review of the movie, they remarked that Ben Affleck’s portrayal went a little flat. Now, I don’t think it was nearly as obvious and as strained as that review stated, but I certainly did pick up something within a similar vein. I feel that Affleck gave a good performance, but he was playing a flat, direct character, and it appeared that his approach to this was just be a flat person as opposed to acting as if he was a flat person. Doing the latter would have helped with Christian Wolff’s relatability. I do recognize that he is not a character that most would easily identify with, but with the amount of screen time he has and the limited screen time everyone else has, there needs to be something for the audience to latch onto, grab, or otherwise be able to acknowledge with some familiarity. Although I said that I wanted more of Kendrick and Simmons, which I most certainly did, I understand why the two of them and everyone else had such low screen time: Christian is a man who needs to reside in his own world. He is a man with a routine and little room for deviation, and that simply is how his life must be, so too much interaction is often more than he can take. A fitting example of this is his aversion to small talk, which he reluctantly discusses in a moment with Dana (Anna Kendrick) that such talk is something that he would like to be able to partake in, but finds himself unable to. But with a movie that is over two hours long, there needs to be someone else with more than 20 or 25 minutes on screen.

The plot was a little awkward: it was not set up in the best fashion, did not mature as well as it could have, and there were some holes that wouldn't have existed if the movie had bothered to provide a little straightforward explanation. For instance, I am still confounded on why the Treasury was looking into Christian if they didn’t want to arrest him. (I read post-viewing that they decided to take evidence provided by Christian’s associate rather than search for him, but I'm sure that the decision to not clarify this directly left many audience members feeling lost.) I understand the motives of Raymond King (J. K. Simmons), but they just don’t seem to fit with the action of the movie.

I also had a problem with the music. The way that I acknowledge music on its level of quality and companionship within a film is how noticeable it is. First off, the song at the very end was bad. That was just a poor choice by someone. But for me, it is more noticeable if the score/soundtrack sticks out like a sore thumb throughout the feature. If a film or movie has a score where you can go the whole way through and not single out the music from particular scenes or find yourself focusing on the music rather than the events in front of you, then odds are that the score is very good. This was unfortunately not quite the case with this movie, but Mark Isham's score could have been much worse.

Perhaps my biggest problem was how The Accountant chose to end. I won’t spoil anything major, mainly because the really big surprises happen about five minutes before the denouement commences. Having Christian send Dana a priceless Pollock, hearkening back to one of their small talk sessions, is a nice touch, but not quite enough. I just now read that Christian is on his way to find his brother as the camera fades, but I feel like the execution of this was botched. The shot should have been of Christian driving in his truck, with the dashboard as a focal point, and then having the camera pan to the passenger seat where his brother is, ready for their new time together. I also read that the final time we see the Harbor Neuroscience Institute is when the identity of the Voice is revealed, but this is so easy to overlook due to the scene's composition. To the viewer, it only appears to be a repeat of Christian’s case, one where you could see the little boy in it also becoming an accountant with violent scenarios or someone in a profession with a paralleled nature and distinction.

With all of this said, it is important to note that this film and Jack Reacher (2012) are very similar in that, somewhere within all of the material, cast, and production capabilities, there was a good movie. The difference between the two is that Jack Reacher requires a massive overhaul, while The Accountant would only need a few tweaks to make the move from decent to good.