{"id":902,"date":"2017-05-06T07:27:50","date_gmt":"2017-05-06T07:27:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/2017\/05\/06\/httptheblurb-com-aureviewsthe-accountant-movie-review\/"},"modified":"2017-05-06T07:27:50","modified_gmt":"2017-05-06T07:27:50","slug":"httptheblurb-com-aureviewsthe-accountant-movie-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/httptheblurb-com-aureviewsthe-accountant-movie-review\/","title":{"rendered":"The Accountant – movie review"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you’re looking for thrills and action and suspense, I dare say the first profession you seek might not be accountancy. But clearly that isn\u2019t the case for the character behind The Accountant<\/em>, Christian Wolff (a role filled by Ben Affleck \u2013 Argo, Batman v Superman<\/i>). He is not only a brilliant number cruncher, but the finest of marksmen \u2013 a deadly shot.<\/p>\n

\"accountant-01\"Wolff is autistic and he rarely shows emotion. Behind the cover of a small-town CPA office, he works as a freelance accountant for some of the world\u2019s most dangerous criminal organisations. With the Treasury Department\u2019s Crime Enforcement Division, run by Ray King (J.K. Simmons), starting to close in, Christian takes on a legitimate client: a state-of-the-art robotics company. That is where an accounting clerk (Anna Kendrick) has discovered a discrepancy involving millions of dollars. But as Christian \u201cuncooks\u201d the books and gets closer to the truth, it is the body count that starts to rise.<\/p>\n

To step back though, we first get to know Christian Wolff as a child whose parents are seeking professional help for him. An empathetic therapist offers to work with him, but Christian\u2019s father \u2013 a military man \u2013 has his own ideas about how to prepare his son for a world that can be harsh for anyone who is deemed \u201cdifferent\u201d. His dad puts Christian and his brother, who doesn\u2019t have autism, through brutal hand-to-hand combat and other forms of rigorous training \u2013 training without mercy, if you like.<\/p>\n

Gavin O\u2019Connor (Warrior<\/i>) directs from a screenplay by Bill Dubuque (The Judge<\/i><\/a>). The spark for the story came from producer Mark Williams, who heard the term \u2018forensic accountant\u2019 and thought it sounded like a detective of some sort. Then he started pushing the envelope, raising the stakes, thinking about who this accountant was working for and that\u2019s when he saw the potential to kick the action into high gear. Once he had the general framework in his head, he took the concept to Bill Dubuque, a writer he\u2019d worked with before and he responded by fleshing out the script.<\/p>\n