The Accountant (2016 film)

The Accountant
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Gavin O'Connor
Produced by	Lynette Howell Taylor Mark Williams
Written by	Bill Dubuque
Starring	Ben Affleck Anna Kendrick J. K. Simmons Jon Bernthal Jeffrey Tambor John Lithgow
Music by	Mark Isham
Cinematography	Seamus McGarvey
Edited by	Richard Pearson
Production companies	Electric City Entertainment Advanced Underwriting Concepts RatPac Entertainment Zero Gravity Management
Distributed by	Warner Bros. Pictures
Release dates	October 10, 2016 (2016-10-10) (TCL Chinese Theatre) October 14, 2016 (2016-10-14) (United States)
Running time	128 minutes[1]
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$44 million[2]
Box office	$145.3 million[2]

The Accountant is a 2016 American action thriller film directed by Gavin O'Connor, written by Bill Dubuque and starring Ben Affleck, Anna Kendrick, J. K. Simmons, Jon Bernthal, Jeffrey Tambor and John Lithgow. The film follows a highly-functioning autistic^[3] small-town certified public accountant who makes his living uncooking the books of dangerous criminal organizations that are experiencing internal embezzlement.

The film premiered in Los Angeles on October 10, 2016, and was theatrically released in the United States on October 14, 2016 by Warner Bros. Pictures. The film received mixed reviews from critics and has grossed $145 million.

Plot

Christian Wolff, a mental calculator, works as a forensic accountant at ZZZ Accounting in Plainfield, Illinois, tracking insider financial deceptions for numerous criminal enterprises brokered to him by a Voice on his phone, from a restricted number. As a child, Christian had been diagnosed with a high-functioning form of autism and offered an opportunity to live at Harbor Neuroscience Institute in New Hampshire. Although Christian had bonded with Justine, the mute daughter of the institute's director, his father declined, believing that Christian should overcome the hardships inherent in his condition rather than expect the world to accommodate. The pressure of raising a special-needs child later drove Christian's mother to leave him and his younger brother, Braxton, with their father, a decorated military officer, who arranged for them to receive extensive training in combat skills, including martial arts and sharpshooting.

Christian is being pursued by Raymond King, the director of FinCEN in the Treasury Department, who knows Christian by the alias "The Accountant". King blackmails young data analyst Marybeth Medina into helping him identify and arrest the Accountant prior to his retirement, threatening to expose her undeclared criminal past if she refuses. King's only leads are Christian's numerous cover names.

The Voice gives Christian his next assignment, auditing state-of-the-art robotics corporation Living Robotics, whose in-house accountant, Dana Cummings, has found suspicious financial discrepancies. The company's CEO, Lamar Blackburn, and his sister and associate Rita Blackburn willingly cooperate with Christian's investigation, while CFO Ed Chilton dismisses Dana's findings as a mistake. Christian ignores Dana's previous work, but impresses her by quickly discovering that $61 million dollars has been embezzled from the company, and they build a reserved rapport. Chilton, who is diabetic, is confronted in his home by a hitman, who forces him to self-administer a fatal insulin overdose by threatening to kill both him and his wife brutally in the manner of a home invasion. Later, Lamar surmises to Christian that Chilton embezzled the money and was driven to suicide out of guilt. Rita closes the investigation, leaving Christian distraught as he has not completed his study.

Meanwhile, Medina realizes Christian's cover identities, including his current name, are all famous mathematicians.^[4] Using facial recognition to track the Accountant leads her to a shootout in which several members of the Gambino crime family had been killed. Analyzing a sound recording, Medina isolates Christian's voice, determining that Christian is muttering the nursery rhyme Solomon Grundy to himself, a behavior consistent with autism spectrum disorder. The trail leads her to the modest accounting office that Christian uses as a cover, dividing his profits through four cash-only businesses in his block, and she learns that Christian has written off hefty tax returns with donations to the Harbor Neuroscience Institute.

Christian and Dana are targeted for assassination, but Christian neutralizes his own pursuers then rescues Dana. While in hiding, they realize that the embezzled money was reinvested in affiliated companies in order to raise Living Robotics' stock price. Concluding that Rita is behind everything, Christian goes to her house, only to find her dead, killed by the hitman, who escapes just as Christian is arriving. Thus, Lamar is exposed as the real mastermind.

King and Medina arrive at Christian's house and find evidence that he is the Accountant. King reveals that Christian had been arrested after an incident at his remarried mother's funeral that led to his father's death, taking a bullet meant for Christian. In jail, Christian had been mentored by Francis Silverberg, a former accountant and fixer for the Gambino crime family who subsequently became an informant for the US government. Silverberg was later released and then tortured to death by the Gambino family, which led Christian to escape and exact revenge on the people responsible.

King confides to Medina that he was present at the shootout and that Christian had spared his life after questioning him about being a "good father". Afterwards, King had been contacted by the Voice and provided with evidence Christian had compiled on criminals who violated his moral code, helping King rise to his position of director. King tells Medina that her investigation of the Accountant has been a test, and she has been selected to replace King, after his retirement, as the Voice's Treasury Department contact.

Christian attacks Lamar's mansion, which is protected by mercenaries led by the hitman. During the resulting shootout, the hitman recognizes the nursery rhyme that Christian is muttering to himself and confronts him, revealing himself to be Christian's brother Braxton, with whom Christian had a falling-out after their father's death. After a brutal fight, the two come to terms, and Braxton does not react when Christian kills Lamar. Later, the Voice relays Christian's evidence on Lamar's criminal activities to Medina, who has accepted King's offer, and she dismantles Living Robotics. Christian then bids farewell to Dana and leaves to find Braxton. In a scene at the Harbor Neuroscience Institute, the Voice is revealed to be a powerful cutting-edge computer, purchased with Christian's money and used by an adult Justine in order to communicate.

Cast

Production

On November 12, 2014, Variety reported that Anna Kendrick was in early talks to co-star in the film, alongside Affleck.^[6] Later that day, J. K. Simmons was also announced as being in talks to join the cast.^[7] On November 14, 2014, Jon Bernthal was also in talks.^[8] On January 6, 2015, Variety reported that Cynthia Addai-Robinson was added to the cast.^[9] On January 14, 2015, Jeffrey Tambor was added to the cast of the film,^[10] with the addition of John Lithgow on the same day.^[11]

Filming began on January 19, 2015 in Atlanta, Georgia.^[12][13] On March 16–20, filming was taking place at the Georgia Institute of Technology.^[14]

Fight choreography

The action fighting sequences in the film featured Indonesian martial arts called Pencak Silat.^[15][16][17]

Marketing

On July 9, 2015, a year before the film's release, it had received graphic novelization published by Vertigo, a limited comic book imprint owned by Warner Bros. Pictures.^[18]

Release

The film was released on October 14, 2016.^[19] Before that, Warner Bros. had scheduled it for January 29, 2016, later moving it to October 7, 2016, before moving it back another week.^[20][21]

Box office

As of December 3, 2016, The Accountant has grossed $84.3 million in the USA & Canada and $61 million in other countries, for a worldwide total of $145 million against a budget of $44 million.^[2]

The Accountant was released alongside Max Steel and Kevin Hart: What Now?, and was expected to gross $20–25 million from 3,332 theaters in its opening weekend, although the studio was projecting a conservative $15 million opening.^[22] The film made $1.35 million from its Thursday night previews, more than Affleck's Gone Girl ($1.2 million) in 2014. It grossed $9.1 million on its first day and $24.7 million in its opening weekend, finishing first at the box office and was the second highest-debut for a thriller of Affleck's career, behind Gone Girl ($37.5 million).^[23] In its second weekend, the film grossed $13.6 million (a drop of just 44.8%), finishing 4th at the box office.^[24]

Critical response

The Accountant received mixed reviews from critics. On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 51%, based on 226 reviews, with a weighted average score of 5.6/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "The Accountant writes off a committed performance from Ben Affleck, leaving viewers with a scattershot action thriller beset by an array of ill-advised deductions."^[25] On Metacritic, the film has a score 51 out of 100, based on 45 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".^[26] According to CinemaScore polls, audiences gave the film an average "A" grade, on an A+ to F scale.^[27]

Vince Mancini of Uproxx gave the film a positive review, writing, "It’s transparent in its attempt both to pimp a future franchise and give autistic kids their own superhero. There’s a genuine sweetness to the latter that converts me on the former. Headshots, math problems, and pained social interactions? Sign me up. Of the two movies Ben Affleck has been in so far this year, The Accountant and Batman V Superman, The Accountant has by far the most franchise potential."^[28]

See also

• Autism spectrum disorders in the media
• Mental calculators in fiction

References

External links

• Official website
• The Accountant at the Internet Movie Database