Director: Gavin O'Connor
Distributor: Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
Duration: 128 minutes
The Accountant (Blu-ray) – Movie Review
Some movies find their subject in the psychological, paramedic sector and The Accountant isn’t any different. Autism is a condition that has many different forms and is mostly used to victimize people in movies. Here, things are slightly different as the protagonist has the role as an accountant, but is there more to it?
Some children are special and need extra or more specific forms of attention. Autism is such a spectrum that can have different outcomes, depending on several aspects such as the temperament of the child for instance. The parents of Christian (Seth Lee) are searching for help as they have problems dealing with him. It seems that he isn’t so fond of close interactions and he has his particular ways of expressing himself. The only friend he has is his brother Braxton (Jake Presley), who tries to help but also has his own issues with this situation. They get to know a young girl there, which has the same ‘condition’. This might seems a bit frightening at first though.
His mother is quite keen on getting her son helped but his father doesn’t want to know anything about it. Children need to learn how the hard world works and his idea is final. Afterwards, we get to see an adult Christian Wolff (Ben Affleck), trying to live his life as an accountant, or so it seems at least. He takes on a fairly simple job, as he needs to investigate some dodgy numbers for the company ‘Living Robotics’. It seems that their young accountant Dana Cummings (Anna Kendrick) has discovered some imperfections. The CEO, Lamar Blackburn (John Lithgow), has heard quite some remarkable stories and that’s why Christian was the perfect man for the job. Lamar’s sister Rita (Jean Smart) and dearest friend Ed Chilton (Andy Umberger) are also a part of the company and have their own ideas about this investigation. The rest of the story slowly reveals what happened in the past and present, how certain events shaped Christian and how he has grown over the years, while also diving into some good ol’ action scenes.
The story starts off rather slowly but will suck you in rather sooner than later. Especially with the start of this movie, you’ll be triggered by the events and you want to know what happened to the young boys. Of course, the flow of the movie gets faster towards the end, where you’ll encounter quite some unexpected and rather violent scenes. These are switched with flashbacks, giving you those extra essential details to help you to understand the complete picture. In the end, the switching between present and past, going in-depth into certain aspects of Christian‘s life and the interactions between him and his female counterpart gives a nice mix and makes it quite enjoyable to watch.
One of the biggest stars of this movie is Ben Affleck as he performs his role perfectly. It’s probably not simple to have to show almost no emotion, to react on certain detached manners and to react like someone with this spectrum. Also, people with Autism are mostly shown as victims and relying on other people while this movie wants to show the opposite. His co-star Anna Kendrick also has a rather big role in this movie. Her rather shy and reserved character fits perfectly with the distant Christian and it feels like the two of them were a good match. The other actors all help to get this feeling that you’re watching something realistic, especially how they interact with the protagonist.
Extra wise, the Blu-ray doesn’t have much added value as there are three featurettes that will give you some info regarding how the movie was created. How did they tackle this depth of Autism? What did they do to get such realistic reactions and interactions? If you want to find out, you definitely should watch these extras. It would have been nice if there was a bit more content provided though, like a gag reel for instance.
Conclusion
The Accountant will take you on a trip into the mind of someone with Autism. You’ll be able to dive into a rather sensational story but with quite some underlying thoughts and emotions. There are quite some great actors starring in this movie, making it that much better. It would have been nice if there a bit more on the disk, but that’s just a minor remark.
The Accountant (Blu-ray) - Movie Review,
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