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| The Accountant 2 (2025) |
At the core of what works about ‘The Accountant 2’ is the action-comedy throwback to buddy movies of the 80s, the formula where two charismatic leads from different worlds are cast as opposites and then let the chemistry do the work. Here, Ben Affleck is more or less the brains to Jon Bernthal’s muscle, and both likable actors deliver, capturing that love-to-hate relationship that only siblings can have. The energy of such performers is brought to life when they are allowed to feed off each other: one of the best scenes showing this is a scene on the roof of the Sunstream owned by Affleck. The problem is everything else.
All in all, “The Accountant 2” does lay an interesting premise. After the events of the first film (which is hard to imagine took place almost a decade prior to the events of this movie), Raymond King (J.K. Simmons) decided to leave FinCEN to become a P.I. and trace the trail of a missing family of three to some very shady locales. He is with a woman named Anaïs (Daniella Pineda), but she is not the problem in this case: that is the armed men in the building and outside it. Are they there for King? Anaïs? Both? After a dramatic shooting scene in a bathroom, King is shot in the street, and not before he has been able to write something on his arm: “Find the accountant.”
At the morgue, the message is received as intended: Marybeth Medina, played by Cynthia Addai-Robinson, is a Treasury agent whose life mission is to capture Christian Wolff, also known as The Accountant. Wolff sees what no one else can see when looking at King’s wall of evidence, and here is where the script of Bill Dubuque begins its implosion. The main problem with “The Accountant 2” is that the movie never bothers to develop its characters, relationships, or motivations, and uses human trafficking and immigration issues as a backdrop to give the audience no real antagonist nor mystery to solve. Perhaps Christian’s hitman brother Braxton (Bernthal) might be in a position to help?
Suddenly, Christian, Braxton, and Medina push their way through the plot with little surprise, twister, and mysterious feelings. That’s fine for some action movies, but director Gavin O’Connor doesn’t compensate for the absence of an engaging story with a lot of shooting. There are a few good scenes of set-up here, but not much in terms of action, and the final showdown is badly done. Dubuque and O’Connor spend half their film at Harbor Neuroscience, where Christian has assembled a team of young clones of himself who are able to hack any phone and rig the traffic lights in order to accomplish their goals. It is quite hilarious to imagine the number of extrajudicial killings to which these special kids have been an accessory to.
This is where the fans of these films will come in and say that this critic is taking the film too seriously. it did cross my mind why I would be yawning at this film, while I can enjoy such mindless Den of Thieves flicks? Suspension of disbelief is a rather interesting concept in that it is so easily done with one hand and ignored with the other. If we’re enamored with action or simply in love with character and sometimes even setting, then issues such as the utter lack of an interesting villain or child serial killers can be overlooked. At times, sheer character or flair can do wonders and overpower the doubts that tend to mar a film of this sort.
In fact, pacing always triumphs over realism, and “The Accountant 2” just doesn’t get it right. I think one of the reasons for that is that O’Connor is far more interested in the brother buddy comedy than the human trafficking action film, and never quite figures out how to blend the two. It is a movie depicting two boys who are as different as night and day and who set out to close the gap between them. Almost completely works. Everything else? Total hokum. Their merging becomes an assignment that even The Accountant cannot solve.
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