The Accountant

On the surface this review may appear to be a bit insensitive towards both autistic and black people but that’s really not my intention. When I first saw the trailer for The Accountant, I cracked this lame joke to my idiot friend about it being the sequel to Powder. It displayed Ben Affleck as this misunderstood idiot savant who just so happened to be really good at numbers; but if we’re really being honest with ourselves, Affleck kind of is this in real life as he’s clearly not the smartest guy to ever walk the Earth, yet he somehow has found a way to be both an A-list actor and an A-list director in Hollywood. How in the world is this possible? Is he just simply playing dumb while secretly being smart just so that he can fit in with his buddies and sell his product to us lowly patrons? Or are we the dumb ones for not caring how mentally challenged he is as we continue to run out and gleefully throw our money at him?

Well as I’m sure you can imagine I didn’t stop once I saw the window of opportunity present itself; I kept on cracking even lamer jokes about Hollywood coming out with more sequels to Powder. I came up with wonderful titles like Le Chocolate: Hood Games or Peanut Butter: Tijuana Livin; both of which are clearly references to the Black and Hispanic versions of their pasty predecessor. These are terrible I know but that doesn’t mean that you wouldn’t stream them on NetFlix if they were available.

But quickly switching gears, I’ve worked with a ton of autistic kids in the past so I should have known that they were going to show up in numbers to support a film that makes them look like heroes. And yes I can go off for days about how they really are heroes for finding a way to function in everyday society as adults but this isn’t that type of blog.

While I worked with them, we would occasionally show the kids movies as a reward for all the hard work they did in school earlier that day. And as is usually the case with special needs kids, they would always find a way to laugh at inappropriate times during the film. For example, if someone rubbed their curves while checking themselves out in the mirror, they’d howl and giggle in delight. Or if someone did something that closely resembled one of their odd coping behaviors, they’d roll on the floor in laughter.

Well it wasn’t until 30 minutes into watching The Accountant that I realized my idiot friend and I were in a theater full of highly functioning autistic adults. We kept wondering why they kept giggling and shifting during odd moments of the film, and it wasn’t until they really lit up during one of little Affleck’s autistic episodes before it clicked for us. They were there to support their brother! And when I say they were there, I don’t mean that one or two were in the house, I mean they were there in numbers the same way Black people show up to see Madea movies! I was shocked! But as the film went on, I don’t know what shocked me more, the fact that there were that many autistic people in the theater or the fact that my idiot friend and I eventually wound up laughing at the same shit they were laughing at! Had we be misdiagnosed? Are we really autistic? Or did Affleck make us all special needs that night?

Oh well, at some point I guess I should actually talk about the film itself shouldn’t I? Affleck’s military father refused to let his son’s condition hold him back. So growing up, as they moved from place to place, he had everyone who was some sort of expert in fighting teach his sons their style. He also forced Affleck to stand up to a group of bullies and to learn how to function in a natural learning environment as a part of his teaching him to never back down from any situation. And as a result, Affleck was able to grow up and live a seemingly normal life as an accountant, with a few quirks of course. But as the Department of the Treasury director soon learns, he is anything but normal. Affleck runs the books for some of the seediest people this world has ever known but somehow he always goes unnoticed and unharmed despite all of the secrets he knows. So he enlists one of his best agents to go on a secret mission to figure out who he really is.

This film was highly entertaining at times with its constant gun battles involving hitmen but there were also plenty of moments where it was boring and even a little silly. I like the Affleck but unless he plays Batman or a Boston townie, he has a hard time not taking you out of the film with his limited acting skills. Going in, you had to know that he was going to struggle with playing the role of a genius but you wouldn’t expect him to struggle as much as he did with being mentally challenged. Well as it turned out, he couldn’t pull off either. Don’t get me wrong, it was funny when he’d do this little dance while crunching numbers but whenever it came time for him to have real interactions with people, you just prayed for the next scene to start.

Overall I’d say that this film was an enjoyable experience; I’d just do myself a favor if I were you and I’d remind myself who Affleck really is as an actor and wait a few weeks before seeing it so you won’t be distracted by his autistic brethren. I rate this film as a little FRESH!