The Accountant 2 Review

After a nine-year break, the 2016 thriller The Accountant gains a sequel with many of the talent in front of and behind the camera returning.

Raymond King (J.K. Simmons) is killed while investigating a missing persons case. Raymond protégé at FinCEN, Marybeth Medina (Cynthia Addai-Robinson), investigates his death, and she calls in some outside assistance, the genius accountant Christian Wolff (Ben Affleck). Marybeth and Christian’s investigation leads the pair to a complex case involving human trafficking into the United States.

The Accountant was a hit back in 2016, resulting in a handsome profit, and was well-regarded by audiences, although the critical reaction was mixed. The sequel has received better reviews and has been well-received by audiences. The Accountant movies appeal to an older demographic, or to put it another way, they’re dad movies.

The Accountant movies fall in the same camp as films like The Equalizer and Jack Reacher movies, the cinematic equivalent of an airport novel. All these series feature older badass characters with military or espionage training and go from city to city to investigate criminals and right wrongs. The Accountant movies have moved from corporate corruption to human trafficking. Centring the story on human trafficking conjured up memories of the second Millennium novel, the first Equalizer movie, and the controversial sleeper hit Sound of Freedom.

The Accountant 2 kept Gavin O’Connor and Bill Dubuque as director and writer, respectively. The sequel’s story felt much more cohesive since everything was tied to the human trafficking plot. The Accountant 2 didn’t feel as disjointed as its predecessor, with its multi-storylines, although The Accountant 2 did cast a wide net because of its numerous characters. The sequel did rely on a lot of explanations and left questions about how characters came to some conclusions. O’Connor has proven himself a competent director, and whilst The Accountant 2 was an action-lite film, the action that was on display was well done, especially the shoot-out during the final act.

The Accountant 2 was a film that wanted to play it both ways. It had a darker subject matter, yet ramped up the comedy. A scene where Christian and his brother, Braxton (Jon Bernthal), arrange a meeting with some trafficked sex workers, so they question them for information. The Accountant 2 was a buddy comedy because of Christian and Braxton’s contrasting personalities. Christian took things literally because of his autism, which made him comically blunt, whilst Braxton had a dark sense of humour since he was an assassin. The core of the sequel was that it was about two brothers having to reconnect on an emotional and professional level after many years apart.

This film was jagging due to the tone and subject matter. It was a film that wanted its central plot to be serious, but some moments were so ridiculous that it was laughable. This was a film that made being neurodivergent into a superpower since there was a room full of autistic teens who were used as hackers, like they were working for CTU, and another character was revealed to have a condition that made them a savant who could learn any skills with ease. There was one reveal that was so over-the-top that it was hilarious. It was comparable to The Amateur, where Rami Malek’s character was coded to be autistic, but that character was well-rounded.

On a final note, I will give The Accountant 2 some bonus points for featuring a ginger cat.

For fans of The Accountant, the sequel offers more of the same. There was entertainment through the character relationships and the occasional moments of action, yet it suffers from being so ridiculous that it makes suspension of disbelief impossible.