‘I’ ON CULTURE
I was shocked when I learned that The Accountant 2 would be made. The first movie, following the violent actions of an autistic money laundering money man, was at best so-so. Since a key element in any good film is character development, that first film, despite good action scenes, fell flat.
The sequel is more fun through its dealings with family tensions that even bring a bit of humor to the whole thing. As a result, it’s a pretty decent movie, albeit one with more than a few flaws.
Several characters have been brought back from the original. A favorite is Ray King (J.K. Simmons), who is a semi-retired government agent and winds up being killed in an exciting opening chase. On his arm, he scribbles “Find the Accountant.” His handler Marybeth Medina (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) is a federal agent who knows this means she had to track down Christian Wolff (Ben Affleck), who is hiding. He had the nickname from his encyclopedic knowledge of the tax code, exemptions and methods of money laundering.
Christian figures out what King was after and calls in his brother Braxton (Jon Bernthal), who is as expert with weapons as Christian, and that gets into a whole load of action. Although not a savant like his brother, Brax is very clever as well as lethal.
Christian has a team this time, a somewhat autistic version of the X-Men. They seem to be able to figure out almost everything. And, to ensure things work well, Christian and Brax are about as violent as anyone is allowed to be. The brothers have no trouble with extra violence, as well as, shall we say, “enhanced interrogation.” I will never be able to look at a Hefty bag in the same way again after one particular scene.
This is becoming a real problem in many films. The audience wants action, real action. And unless dealing with real superheroes who can do comic-book-style tricks, our heroes wind up doing the same things. And when they use excessive force or violate the law, or even more to the point, the general tenets of decency, they are far less heroic. And there will be those who are quick to excuse that, noting that no one is perfect and, well, the good guys are really the heroes. So what if their white hats have turned somewhat gray? In addition, many writers and directors are creating more complex villains. In the last Captain America film, the main villain had been badly treated, which provide a cinematic kind of supposed moral excuse for taking actions that killed people. Perhaps the black hats are lightening.
This creates a moral issue in real life. How many issues are now decided based on personal likes and dislikes by politicians and other kinds of leaders without regard to any kind of benefits or problems? I have a cousin who has always been an environmental activist to the point of being an extremist. He lives in Oregon and condemns me regularly for using too much electricity for air conditioning. But now he looks at his Tesla and wonders what went wrong.
The cast in the film is very good. Affleck handles the role with a stoicism that somehow allows at least a few feelings to get, out particularly with Bernthal. For a change, he does get to act. But Bernthal steals the film. He is funny and explosive, a great contrast to Affleck’s flatness. Watching him explode in frustration at his brother’s lack of emotion provides some good comedy. And the young people are all very good. And any time J.K. Simmons is in a film, he steals every scene he’s in. Of course, here he is killed off early.
The action scenes are very strong. If you like men firing machine guns, men who seem to have stronger relationships with their weaponry than any women, you have probably found a movie you will like. The action, when it does take place, is extremely well done.
So, it’s another B film. Not bad, actually decent. The question really is whether you want to spend the kind of money it takes to see it now, or wait a few weeks and watch it for far less on TV. A bit of waiting will not hurt.