Review: The Accountant²

Director:  Gavin O’Connor

Stars:  Ben Affleck, Jon Bernthal, Cynthia Addai-Robinson

It’s taken a little over 8 years to get here, but having made a killing at the box office on a relatively modest budget, Gavin O’Connor’s The Accountant finally has it’s improbable – and arguably quite unnecessary – sequel. Credit where it’s due, the team behind O’Connor’s weirdly-shaped neuro-divergent thriller have almost all made it back for this follow-up. Only Anna Kendrick’s paper-pushing Dana Cummings is notable for her absence, and her story was neatly wrapped up anyway. We have all the other pertinent main actors and, behind the camera, both O’Connor and the original’s writer Bill Dubuque present as well. With such creative continuity, it’s something of a surprise – and a pleasant one – to discover that The Accountant² is a actually very different feeling movie. It’s less plodding, more coherent and, perhaps best of all, has found it’s funny bone.

Since freelance cartel accountant Christian Wolff (Ben Affleck) and his mercenary brother Braxton (Jon Bernthal) parted ways in the last movie, they’ve remained strangers to one another. The reason for this is asked but not directly answered, and becomes a lynchpin of a surprisingly sympathetic depiction of high-functioning autism (it’s not unproblematic, however, and we’ll get to that later). Disconnected family is a through-line of a roaming picture that largely casts off Wolff’s criminal accounting (or any accounting) in favour of a steady if sentimental investigation into a human trafficking ring brought to Wolff by Treasury Department chief Marybeth Medina (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) after her former boss Ray King (J.K. Simmons) is gunned down in the film’s opening minutes. 

Little has changed for Wolff. He’s still living solo off-grid in his compact mobile home. Still taking jobs via remote assistance from Harbor Neurosicence patient Justine (Allison Robertson, the one bit of recasting), who has now corralled a veritable school of young proteges to assist her (a slightly thorny mirroring of the human trafficking storyline in its depiction of the exploitation of the young). But Wolff is also branching out. He’s lonesome and trying to connect. Rigging a speed-dating algorithm doesn’t bring him much success, but the intent is there.

Companionship ultimately comes in the form of his reckless brother Braxton, whom he reaches out to for assistance in the King murder case, turning The Accountant² into more of a buddy movie than it’s predecessor. Affleck and Bernthal had limited shared screen time in the first film, and this sequel benefits greatly from the opportunities given for the two actors to bounce off of one another. Affleck keeps Chris relatively contained, still, but his portrayal of neurodivergence feels just a shade broader than previously. Bernthal, it turns out, is a great foil for him. Braxton very likely has his own a-typical disorder. He’s a hyperactive and reactionary ball of energy. O’Connor leans into their odd-couple bickering and even allows it to power some well-played comedic beats and punchlines. Particularly during a priceless visit to a country’n’western bar. 

Obsession is a trait common to all characters here, given clear visual manifestation when Chris, Braxton and Marybeth discover Ray’s wall-of-evidence that’s been disassembled by a nervous landlord. The differing ways they approach reframing the wall is a neat display of variations in thinking, while it also puts them on the tail of a prime suspect; fellow exacting assassin Anaïs (Daniella Pineda). How Anaïs ultimately relates to the case is something of a bold leap from scribe Dubuque. It’s kinda credulity busting if you’re a stickler for so-called realism. But given that the third act plays out with a two-man assault on a veritable army, maybe it’s worthy elasticising strict definitions of what is and isn’t allowed to be just plain daft. 

One of the main things that brought The Accountant to it’s knees was it’s frequently hampered pacing. So many flashbacks plus, fatally, a 20-minute exposition dump right when it should have been gearing up for a finale. The Accountant² isn’t nearly so hamstrung, and it’s diversions and indulgences are better folded into the overall structure. It walks a fine line between genuinely sensitive representation of neurodivergence and weaponising the ‘other’ to fantastic effect. Pulling ‘Acquired Savant Syndrome’ into the narrative is a little lumpen, and there’s the aforementioned autistic hacking squad backing up Justine. The latter, however, is portrayed as another kind of discovered family, with the kids competing against one another like siblings. In spite of what might be deemed exploitative, there’s a sense of camaraderie and empowerment that O’Connor takes time to convey. The intent is positive.

The Accountant² is engaging and enjoyable even when it isn’t on blast with action, which, frankly, is most of the time. It’s not until the finale and an all-out assault on an El Salvador trafficking camp that O’Connor delivers on the action contingent of his action-thriller. Cracking off smoke cannisters as the tooled-up brothers take on generic Central American mercs, it feels as though O’Connor is cleaving close to Denis Villeneuve’s Sicario for inspiration. It’s fine as it goes, but the more studied human interactions and emotional beats of the story offer more than this late-coming adrenaline punch. The story also chooses this moment to take a key player off the board who, really, ought to have been there. Perhaps they would have complicated the ultra-neat ending that Dubuque is keenly driving toward. 

I’d be interested to hear how people with autism feel represented – or not – by The Accountant². I’m a normie like Marybeth; empathetic but outside of the experience. As such I can’t fully appreciate how these depictions play. It feels as though O’Connor’s film skips either side of a line that takes advantage of the condition or approaches it with a level of refreshing fairness in the Hollywood landscape. 

Either way, this is a sillier but superior sequel that makes for a solid evening at the local flicks, even as it leans cheesily into sentimentalism and pure Dad Movie seriousness with what seems like genuine affection for these qualities.