by Cain Noble-Davies
Worth: $17.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Ben Affleck, Jon Bernthal, JK Simmons, Allison Robertson, Cynthia Addai-Robinson
Intro:
… manages to deliver even more entertainment value than the first film …
The Accountant was one of the few modern movies that centres on autism that actually got it right. Sure, its plot was all over the place, and there’s the ever-present debate concerning neurotypical actors as neurodiverse characters, but as recognition that there is space in the classic action-thriller formula for a lead who cares more about the satisfaction of completing a task than how cool they look or sound while doing it, filled a niche for a specific kind of power fantasy that is genuinely inclusive and empowering. It’s certainly aged better than the fawning condescension of The Predator and everything about Sia’s Music, and while it has taken nine years to happen, it has finally seen a sequel.
Ben Affleck is still brilliant as the titular accountant, balancing his social difficulties and mannerisms with an understanding that he wants to connect with others; he’d just prefer to do so on his own terms. However, he is only half of the main draw, with Jon Bernthal returning as his brother Braxton. While their team-up does take a while to take root on-screen, their dynamic is consistently and wonderfully entertaining. Bernthal arguably fills the same role that Anna Kendrick did in the first film, serving as the extrovert to Christian’s introvert, but with the way that the film draws parallels between the two in their rehearsing of social scripts, adherence to finishing what they start, and preferring dogs over cats (the latter being easily the most neurodivergent of all house pets), it’s arguable that the film at its core is about showing two different forms of Autism Spectrum Disorder [ASD], given the heritability of the condition.
The plot, once again, is wayward and seemingly exists just to string different chances for Christian and Braxton to do their thing. The central mystery doesn’t matter too much, and the film seemingly forgets what the mystery is even about at times. However, this is an extremely minor issue for two reasons. For one, The Accountant 2, when taken scene-by-scene, manages to deliver even more entertainment value than the first film. Shoot-outs, line dancing, info-dumping about wage discrepancies on the set of The Wizard of Oz; it’s all really fun and kind of righteous in its own way.
And for another, as much as the main narrative focuses on Mexican cartels, the real push comes from not just Christian and Braxton’s brotherly bond, but also how Christian’s aide Justine (a non-verbal autistic) factors into things. Between the reveal of Justine’s ‘orchestra’ (a damn-near revolutionary moment, given the common conflation of ‘non-verbal’ with ‘more damaged kind of autistic’) and the inclusion of Acquired Savant Syndrome into the plot, the film presents the neurodivergent and autistic communities as capable, passionate, empathetic, and willing to look out for each other. Far from destroying families, this presents the condition as something that creates them if there is a gap where support should be (which, even to this day, is often the case). There are finer points to consider regarding physical aggression in relation to autism (usually invoked to emphasise the inherent ‘suffering’ and ‘threat’ that comes with the diagnosis… apparently), but within the framework of a tense action-thriller, there’s something liberating about seeing some (albeit incomplete) representation amongst the hyper-masculine hard-ass standard for the genre.
The Accountant 2 builds on the compassionate ASD lens of its predecessor, and not only creates even further cathartic glee in its representation of the spectrum (casting notwithstanding) but also delivers as a properly fun action flick.
