Four stars. Rated R, for strong violence and profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.14.16
Characters who defy expectations are
a lot of fun.
Accountants toil in the back
rooms of office obscurity, burdened further by a reputation for blandness: a
pejorative they hardly deserve. The finest accountants are akin to ace
detectives, concocting novel methods of financial wizardry, or uncovering
corporate impropriety.
 |
| Having turned over the results of an analysis that required several months, Dana (Anna Kendrick) is astonished to return to work the next morning, and find that Chris (Ben Affleck) has cross-checked, enhanced and sourced the anomaly in question ... all in a single day. |
Link that profession with the
savant and socially awkward characteristics of Dustin Hoffman’s Rain Man, or Christian Bale’s character
in The Big Short, and the results can
be captivating.
At first blush, Christian Wolff
(Ben Affleck) fits the bill perfectly. We meet him assisting an elderly couple,
Frank and Dolores Rice (Ron Prather and Susan Williams), through their tax
prep, gently “steering” them into answers that formalize a home business with
advantageous deductions. It’s a droll scene, all the more so because of Chris’
stoic, near immobility: his rigid posture, his failure to smile, his reluctance
to meet his clients’ gaze.
We’re familiar with these signs:
Chris is on the spectrum.
He returns home each evening to a
stabilization ritual in the privacy of his bedroom: a bright light,
ear-splittingly loud music, and methodical exercise, all timed to a specific
schedule. Chris’ primary tic: He must finish anything he starts, otherwise he
loses control.
Actually, the situation is more
complicated. During flashbacks to Chris’ childhood — the character played here
by Seth Lee, persuasively distressed — we see a boy in full-blown meltdown,
unable to interact with an environment he finds too chaotic. Younger brother
Brax (Jake Presley) watches helplessly, as their parents argue over treatment.
Mom (Mary Kraft) favors intervention in the nurturing environment of a special
needs school; Dad (Robert C. Treveiler), career military, insists that it’s
more realistic to confront their elder son with a world that’ll never go out of
its way to treat him fairly.
But wait: The situation is even more complicated.
Elsewhere, back in the modern
day, U.S. Treasury Department Crime Enforcement Division head Ray King (J.K.
Simmons), soon to retire, recounts an unlikely tale to recruit Marybeth Medina
(Cynthia Addai-Robinson). King shares a shadowy photo trail of a mysterious
somebody — known only as “The Accountant” — who gets hired, somehow
clandestinely, whenever the world’s most dangerous criminal organizations need their finances vetted.
Somehow, even more improbably, this
“Accountant” survives these encounters, remaining available for the next
summons by, say, the head of a drug cartel.
King wants to know who this
“Accountant” actually is, before he retires. Medina reluctantly accepts the
assignment.
