Christian Wolff (Ben Affleck) is an accountant with high functioning autism who behind his seemingly legitimate small town practice operates as a launderer and auditor for the criminal underworld and possesses an array of combat skills. Taking a legitimate contract for work at technology firm Living Robotics, Wolff is hired by CEO Lamar Blackburn (John Lithgow) to investigate some apparent irregularities in their financial books first identified by in house accountant Dana Cummings (Anna Kendrick). As Wolff works with Dana and confirms her suspicions, this leads to the two of them unearthing a conspiracy within the company that puts targets on both their backs and against his better judgment Wolff risks protecting Dana from whoever is behind the kill order.
The Accountant is a 2016 action-thriller directed by Gavin O'Connor and Bill Bubuqe. The film became a decent sized hit earning $155 million against a $44 million budget and also generated a positive response from audiences. Critical reception tended to be more mixed with many praising the action sequences and performances (particularly Affleck's), but there was also criticism levied against the screenplay which was seen as overly busy and some labeling the film as potentially offensive to autistic individuals due to a prominent neurodivergent character's engaging in violent acts. Taken for what it is, The Accountant provides some traditional genre thrills with an unconventional and engaging lead character.
Despite the film following an accountant, the film follows a pretty familiar framework with some clear DNA traces to films such as John Wick or The Equalizer with maybe a splash of the style of A Beautiful Mind. Ben Affleck does really well as Wolff who certainly falls within the trope of "quiet introspective badass", but there's some good character work that shows him hardening himself against grating stimuli and engaging in meditative or coping mechanisms that allow him an oasis. This is where I disagree with the critics standing on the film portraying autism in a negative way because the titular Accountant does similar moral code motivated actions similar to John Wick or Robert McCall and it falls in line with action movie universe logic and there's really no difference here aside from the character having autism even down to him protecting innocents even if it's at his own expense. Admittedly there's probably a little too much story in the Accountant with all the detours that go into the accountant's childhood, the conspiracy plot, and a side plot involving J. K. Simmons' Raymond King and Cynthia Addal-Robinson's Marybeth Medina working as Treasury Agents investigating the accountant which probably didn't need to be in the movie and admittedly leads to the film feeling more meandering than a straight narrative, but the characters and backstories were so interesting that I didn't mind the main plot had to pause for the detours.
The Accountant takes familiar crime/action thriller tropes and frames them around a unique lead character in an engaging universe. While it's plot deviates from the traditional framework for this kind of movie, it's oddly appropriate to have an unconventional journey for an unconventional character.
