Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Accountant’ on Netflix, with Ben Affleck Doing Math and Murder

The Accountant, currently streaming on Netflix, is Ben Affleck’s biggest non-superhero movie since Gone Girl, and has a similarly airport-page-turner style – but it’s not based on a book. It’s a pulpy action-drama that seems designed for ideal dad-movie relaxation.

THE ACCOUNTANT: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Christian Wolff (Ben Affleck) is an autistic man, raised by a strict military dad, who works as a CPA – or at least, that’s his cover. Christian’s real specialty is “uncooking” financial books for various shady companies, solving financial problems for organizations that require discretion. On top of that, he’s a well-trained killer, ready to leave things behind in thirty seconds flat if he feels the heat around the corner. That particular set of skills is tested when Wolff is in the middle of figuring out a financial discrepancy for a seemingly innocuous robotics company; his job is curtailed, and soon he and company accountant Dana (Anna Kendrick), who found the initial mistake, are being targeted by ruthless assassins. Though he’s mostly a social loner, Christian feels a drive to protect Dana, and stop the bad guys once and for all. Meanwhile, Marybeh Medina (Cynthia Addai-Robinson), an agent for the Treasury Department, is attempting to track him down, urged along by her boss Ray King (J.K. Simmons). 

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Affleck’s socially isolated, killer-when-provoked Christian vaguely recalls airport-novel pulp heroes like Jack Reacher (particularly the more human-sized Tom Cruise version), while the white-collar-crime plotting recalls John Grisham adaptations like The Firm, albeit with more ludicrous backstories and a higher body count. It’s also not unlike the Jason Bourne series starring Affleck’s pal Matt Damon (although, let’s be real: Matt Damon would never). 

Performance Worth Watching: In an all-star cast featuring reliable guys like Simmons, Jon Bernthal, and John Lithgow, it’s notable that Anna Kendrick, operating in a far less heightened register than many of her male costars, is nonetheless able to deliver a performance that is both deeply likable (as she always is) and surprisingly believable (given the outlandish circumstances). In a lot of movies, the damsel in distress catching feelings (however fleeting) for her burly protector would be eye-rolling; here, it’s an unlikely highlight that keeps the movie grounded.

Memorable Dialogue: Christian and Dana have a funny exchange about art, including the “incongruity” of the famous Dogs Playing Poker painting. 

Sex and Skin: There’s no time for that! Christian has anonymous henchmen to dispatch!

Our Take: If ever a movie felt like evidence that they don’t make ‘em like that used to, it’s The Accountant, which throws back to both ‘90s-era corporate-malfeasance thrillers and one-man-army action pictures. That’s not to say the movie is badly made; in fact, director Gavin O’Connor gives it a baseline clarity, slickness, and production value that make it feel very much like a big-studio thriller of yore. (One of the reasons it’s been so popular on multiple streaming services is probably that it doesn’t feel like a streaming movie; it feels like something you used to watch in theaters.) No, the difference is more literal than that: The Accountant isn’t made with the same presumption of a smart middlebrow audience patient enough for a legal thriller, or the lowest-common-denominator bluntness of a middling shoot-em-up. It’s a bizarre hybrid of different types of Dad Movies, overstuffing its narrative until it needs to take repeated time-outs for characters to deliver backstory-heavy monologues. 

With so much going on in The Accountant, it might have been wise to drop the movie’s dodgiest angle: Its depiction of an autistic man as a kind of remote superhero/Terminator figure, a conception that’s both condescending to real people on the autism spectrum and unflattering to Affleck’s strengths as a movie star. It’s hard to say that he’s bad as Christian Wolff so much as the whole character is kind of misguided, freighted with a backstory the movie itself seems uncertain about. Is it supposed to be… a good thing that Christian’s father insisted that he immerse himself in the stimuli that so upset him as a child? When we’re watching in awe as Christian dispatches the bad guys, it’s hard not to assume so. 

Yet despite its loopy ideas coming in from all sides (or possibly even because of them), The Accountant is very entertaining, thanks in large part to the work from its stacked cast of characters: Anna Kendrick’s nerdily frazzled, non-killing accountant; a live-wire mystery man played by Jon Bernthal; J.K. Simmons gamely delivering an absolute torrent of late-movie exposition. Even Affleck, stuck in a near-impossible role, still holds the screen like a champ. The Accountant is a ridiculous movie with at least one subplot too many and a genuine murkiness about why, after all this, Christian Wolff wants to launder money for a living. But it’s certainly not a dull night at the movies.

Our Call: The Accountant is a bit much, and even in that area faces competition from movies like the three bullets-and-bureaucracy John Wick sequels, which do A Bit Much with a lot more style and even some genuine soul. At the same time, its fusion of genres is weird and compelling enough for you to STREAM IT. 

Jesse Hassenger (@rockmarooned) is a writer living in Brooklyn. He’s a regular contributor to The A.V. Club, Polygon, and The Week, among others. He podcasts at www.sportsalcohol.com, too.

Stream The Accountant on Netflix