‘The Accountant 2’ counts on bromance
The Accountant 2,” now in theaters, is a bit of a surprise. “The Accountant” came out almost a decade ago, a stately thriller about a man with “special skills and abilities” that, though they aren’t superpowers, remain impressive. Christian Wolff (Ben Affleck) seems to present as a high-functioning autistic, not great with social cues and emotions but an ace at math and accounting, trivia, pattern recognition, the parsing of information, etc. Oh, and he was trained in fighting and weaponry by his father. The film did better than expected for an adult-aimed genre piece, and after enough time, during which it gained even more fans through cable and streaming platforms, a sequel was greenlit and here we are with an unexpected but welcome sequel.
The new movie catches up with Wolff eight years later, now in Idaho, trying to find love via gaming a matchmaking event’s algorithm to make himself an ideal candidate. Though it gets the desired result of more women being interested in him, it doesn’t solve the problem of having to make a genuine connection with these women. Meanwhile, Ray King (JK Simmons), who Wolff helped in the prior movie, is murdered after meeting with a ruthless, singular-minded assassin (Daniela Padilla, “Cowboy Bebop”). Scrawling “Find The Accountant” on his arm before his death, King knows this message will get through to his former protégé Marybeth Medina (Cynthia Addai-Robinson, “The Rings of Power”). She finds Wolff, they uncover the case King was handling, which seems to be a missing-persons one, and try to pick up the leads from there. When they find out who they’re dealing with, however, Wolff knows he needs backup, and not just from his plucky team of savant kids on the other side of the country (it’s a thing), but from his actual blood brother, Braxton (Jon Bernthal). You know, the assassin.
No room for love
While the first movie had a semi-romance going on with Anna Kendrick, there’s no room for love in this sequel except brotherly love. It goes all in on hanging the good will of audiences on the brothers’ awkward interactions, which pays dividends. Affleck’s best work recently has been trying to figure out what to do with his face as Wolff, and Bernthal’s hangdog charm works in contrast, constantly seeking some kind of affection, validation, or approval from his older brother though he’d never admit to needing it. Addai-Robinson plays a conflicted go-between, a federal employee beholden to due process and the rule of law, while the brothers Wolff have more, shall we say, relaxed ideas with regard to legality.
While the plot has a decent enough mystery at its center, it’s not the point: how Pineda’s assassin Anaïs is connected isn’t a mind-blower but has enough emotional content to land. What may frustrate audiences is if they’re expecting an action showcase, which this isn’t. There’s the murder of King that starts things off, one interrogation scene and then the big action finale.
There’s some stylish cost-cutting, but it still reads as cost-cutting. Director Gavin O’Connor (whose last three films have starred Affleck) shows the aftermath of a raid in a Berlin penthouse, or cuts away from the action at a bar house to comedic effect, smash-cutting to hoodlums being tossed out of a window. During the firefight in daylight (a very welcome rarity), smoke bombs are used to disguise some budgetary limitations.
While there’s no telling where they might go next, “The Accountant 2” makes that prospect enticing because of how convincing Affleck and Bernthal’s chemistry is.
