"'The Accountant" is a new action thriller starring Ben Affleck as a math genius who's been trained as top notch killing machine. Anna Kendrick co-stars. Time Warner Cable News film critic Neil Rosen filed the following review.
The title of the new movie, "The Accountant," may not sound very exciting, but it is actually an action thriller and it stars Ben Affleck.
Affleck plays a math genius who has Asperger Syndrome. He has difficulty connecting socially with other people, but he has been trained by his father, a stern military man, to be a skilled fighter and expert marksman.
Those talents come in handy when he takes on a shady robotics firm as client. You see, a clerk who works for that company, played by Anna Kendrick, has discovered a discrepancy involving millions of dollars. As Affleck examines the books and gets closer to uncovering the truth, murder and mayhem ensues, as they both wind up on the run from assassins.
For about two thirds of the film, "The Accountant" is kind of cool. It's interesting to see Affleck playing a different kind of protagonist. He is a well-organized thief with Rain Man like abilities, who is also a top-notch killing machine.
However, the film completely falls apart in the final half hour. The multiple conclusions to the set-up do not pay off in a logical way. In fact, they are farfetched and kind of ridiculous.
The casting of both Affleck and Kendrick was a little off. They do an acceptable job, but both roles would have been better suited to other actors.
The action scenes seem perfunctory. It is as if the director and screenwriter did not know where to go with this, so they just threw in a bunch of shoot em' up stuff and a very weak car chase to compensate for a thin and confusing plot.
The supporting cast, which includes JK Simmons, Jeffery Tambor and John Bernthal are fine, and it's intriguing and fun for a time. But the ludicrous ending kind of ruined the whole experience for me.
Neil Rosen’s Big Apple Rating:
Two Apples