(spoiler free)
When Ben Affleck isn’t busy keeping the streets of Gotham safe as Batman, fighting Superman, antagonising the Suicide Squad or assembling his own version of the Avengers he is actually still making other movies believe it or not! Unfortunately we still have a little while to wait for his next directorial effort, ‘Live By Night’ but in the mean time he’s given us ‘The Accountant’. Affleck plays the leading role here, an autistic accountant to some of the worlds most dangerous criminals, sure what could possibly go wrong?
It was a shame that as a film I didn’t think much went right. My biggest problem was the narrative, I just found it so hard to follow. I often struggled to understand motives and decisions from different characters and there was too much accounting jargon that went over my head. Eventually the narrative ends up being quite cleverly told however, the journey to these plot revelations just isn’t enjoyable enough to make it worth while. I’ll admit that the finale to the film and the more open story salvages something for ‘The Accountant’ but it just couldn’t make up for the largely boring bulk of scenes leading up to this point.
I did like some things about the movie though. I thought that Ben Affleck performed well and portrayed his character to a great standard, making his circumstances and condition believable. Other cast members such as Jon Bernthal and J.K. Simmons were good too. I would have liked to have seen more of Simmons but it wouldn’t have necessarily made sense for his character to have much more screen time, even in a small supporting role like this Simmons still injects so much quality into the film though. I had issues with Anna Kendrick and her character, I just didn’t think that the pair were well matched, I found Kendrick’s performance didn’t fit with the character and as a result stopped the story from being interesting. There were plenty of cliched characters anyway but I just thought hers stood out as the weakest. The best thing about the movie though was its action sequences, these were so brutal, the highlight being a scene in an apartment block. This scene showcased the potential that this film had, it may as well have been Affleck playing Batman without the suit it was so badass. It’s a real shame that the film squanders its few brilliant action moments by the overwhelming weak storytelling present in the rest of the run time.
‘The Accountant’ just didn’t quite add up for me. With some good performances and really pulse pounding action sequences there was potential for a really fun action flick, not dissimilar to something like ‘John Wick’. However any chance the film had was lost on me due to the confusing and uninteresting narrative that weighs the film down.
Rating – 4/10
Question: What is your favourite Ben Affleck movie?
(Leave your answers in the comments section below!)
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