The Accountant 2

by Mike McGranaghan

The Accountant is an unlikely film to get the sequel treatment. It earned $86 million at the domestic box office – a respectable hit but hardly a blockbuster. Frequent airings on cable TV appear to have boosted its popularity, not to mention its notoriety as a quintessential “dad movie.” Therefore, we now have The Accountant 2, which is marginally better than the original yet still a weird, inconsistent mash-up of elements.

Ben Affleck returns as Christian Wolff, an autistic mob accountant. Actually, he’s got “cinematic autism,” meaning his condition shows itself in whatever form is needed to advance the plot at any given moment. When his former nemesis Ray King (J.K. Simmons) is murdered, federal agent Marybeth Madina (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) reluctantly calls upon him to help track down the culprit. Solving the case requires locating a family of Mexican immigrants that has gone missing. Christian brings in his assassin brother Braxton (Jon Bernthal) for assistance.

Like its predecessor, The Accountant 2 has a needlessly convoluted story that’s occasionally difficult to follow. Many half-formed elements, such as a coterie of autistic child computer hackers and a criminal enterprise run out of a fish market, are introduced and left undeveloped. These things have the effect of muddying the waters. A plot like this requires its pieces to fit together coherently in order to create suspense. Throwing in everything but the kitchen sink works directly against that goal.

The inclusion of lengthy comedic bits similarly slows down the pace. We’re given a long scene wherein Braxton tries to buy a Corgi, another that finds Christian taking part in a speed dating event, and a stopover in a bar where he spontaneously learns how to country line dance. Amusing as those sequences may be, they grind the narrative to a dead halt while simultaneously dragging out the running time to a tiresome 132 minutes.

Affleck and Bernthal get more scenes together in this sequel, and the bantering between them is the best part. Their chemistry is the one thing here that feels genuinely vibrant. Action is minimal, although director Gavin O’Connor does pull off a nifty shootout during the finale. Those pleasing elements nevertheless fall victim to a fragmented story that meanders its way to the finish line.

The Accountant 2 uses autism as a gimmick, never depicting it with realism. Likewise, immigration and human trafficking are utilized as props. The seriousness of those issues is underplayed. Pleasurable or well-acted individual scenes cannot compensate for the overall jumbled, manipulative nature of the movie. You practically need a spreadsheet to keep track of it all. And even then, there's minimal value.

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