Reasons to see (or not) The Accountant

Synopsis: Christian Wolff is an accountant, diagnosed with autism since he was a little kid. He conducts a mysterious solitary life, moving from continent to continent to uncook the books of big criminal organizations. When hired to find out who is stealing money from a big company, he finds himself involved in a dangerous situation.

I kept the synopsis clean and short, but the truth is that this movie revealed itself to be a fully entertaining, emotional product. It is centered around the figure of Christian (Ben Affleck) and its mental condition with a rather simple main plot. However, the narration brings the viewer on a journey through the past and the mind of the main character with the use of several subplots. 

The presence of so many plots is usually dangerous for a 2 hours movie and, in all fairness, the movie can seem to be a confuse bunch of events until they are all wrapped up during the third act. For this reason, I believe the only reasonable main plot of the movie is not about the events on screen, but rather about the solitude and the struggle of the main character and how he affects the people around him. With this assumption, every single subplot is revealing a different aspect of the protagonist's life and eventually all of them matters in the big picture.

We are brought into his past with a series of flashbacks with the pretext of giving us some detail on how he got his abilities and generic background. However, the real message is to illustrate three different approaches (from the three different family members) to deal with a child affected by a mental condition. 

We see how that child learned how to interact with the people around him at the best of his possibilities, from identifying the emotions of his interlocutor to the emotionless homicide. On this aspect, the movie oscillates from a dark tone to a comic one. I saw the movie twice and I got fascinated by the heterogeneous response by the audience at every scene. The emotional detachment of the protagonist hits the viewers with a two folded emotion, at times making you burst into a laugh, other times making you empathize with the solitude of the character. In other words, the movie keeps you on your toes, making you dig deep in your feelings about a mental condition that by definition makes any kind of interaction difficult. 

The excellent action movie surrounding this aspect makes The Accountant a unique product. I should confess that I do not like Ben Affleck as an actor but this role is perfect for the emotionless pretty face he carries around. His job is nearly perfect and probably the most appropriate casting choice of the year. The supporting cast is very convincing, J.K. Simmons above everyone else, delivering a touching performance that reveals yet again how good he is in his job.

In an era of poor action movies, The Accountant is a bright spot, approaching the genre with an interesting angle.