Number cruncher Christian Wolff is drawn into the mystery surrounding
the murder of a former acquaintance.
Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Gavin O'Connor
Starring: Ben Affleck, Jon Bernthal, Cynthia Addai-Robinson, Daniella Pineda, Allison Robertson, J.K. Simmons
2016's
The Accountant
performed modestly at the box office yet somehow became the most rented
title on US VOD platforms of 2017. Despite such unlikely returns, it has
taken almost a decade for a sequel to surface, with original director
Gavin O'Connor and writer Bill Dubuque back on board.
Despite having so much time to refine this, O'Connor and Dubuque's sequel
plays like it was rushed to market, with a script desperately in need of a
couple more rewrites and baggy pacing that cries out for some judicious
editing.
Ben Affleck is back as Christian Wolff, the accountant whose
autism infamously gives him superpowers. This time he's called in to
help Marybeth Medina (Cynthia Addai-Robinson), the federal
agent who was on his tail in the first movie (at least I think she was;
it's been a decade ffs!!!), when her boss (JK Simmons) is murdered
by a mysterious foe. Christian reunites with his hitman
brother Braxton (Jon Bernthal), the two forming a brains and
brawn double act.
The plot is relatively simple yet it's made to seem complex by the film's
messy structure. My complaint regarding the first movie was that it felt
like an eight-episode season of TV had been condensed to a two-hour movie,
and The Accountant 2 suffers from the same issue. The film
doesn't seem to realise it only has two hours to tell this story, and
there are several scenes that could easily be excised to make it more
zippy. I'm not sure why we need to spend five minutes with Bernthal's
Braxton rehearsing a phone call to a woman he plans to buy a puppy from,
for example. The annoying thing is, this franchise could actually make for
great TV, as Wolff is exactly the sort of compelling protagonist hit shows
were once built around.
The Accountant 2 can't quite decide what type of movie it
is. There are moments where we could be watching a Batman movie, with
Affleck essentially playing Bruce Wayne on the spectrum. At other points
it's a Sherlock Holmes knockoff, complete with Wolff's very own Baker
Street Irregulars in a group of autistic youngsters who all live in an
institute like that house full of geniuses from the great
Columbo episode 'The Bye-Bye Sky High I.Q. Murder Case'. It
briefly becomes a 1982 Burt Reynolds movie when Christian and Braxton
visit a country and western bar (not a bad thing). The gun-toting climax
is completely at odds with the rest of the movie, forcing us to ask how
we're suddenly watching a Charles Bronson movie from 1986. Take out this
bombastic climax however and The Accountant 2 is a talky,
televisual affair that does little to justify seeing it on a big screen.
Making Wolff and Braxton essentially superheroes means we never feel like
they're in any real danger, and the movie never quite establishes its
villains enough to make them a genuine threat. Nor
is Addai-Robinson's Marybeth a sufficient straight man to the comic
duo of Affleck and Bernthal. Once again I find myself asking what Shane
Black might do with the potential that's wasted here.
To its credit, this sequel is at least more self-aware than its
relatively straight-faced predecessor. The Accountant 2 is
at its most entertaining when mining comedy from Christian's social
awkwardness or Braxton's machismo. Affleck is so good in such moments that
we wonder why he hasn't starred in more comedies. With his surprisingly
moving MMA drama Warrior, O'Connor gave us one of the great recent portrayals of estranged
brothers, so it's perhaps no surprise that The Accountant 2's best scenes are those that feature Christian and Braxton sparring.
There are brief glimpses of the satisfying big or small screen series this
could have been, but in general The Accountant 2 is an
unfocussed mess. It's hard to imagine this sequel will become this year's
biggest rental, but there's no accounting for taste.
The Accountant 2 is in UK/ROI
cinemas from April 25th.
