While it's unlikely to earn any new fans, The Accountant 2 is a more straight-forward and fun film than the original.
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Something I've found very humorous has been the reactions to the mere existence of The Accountant 2. A lot of folks seem surprised that a movie made almost ten years ago had enough traction to get a sequel made, other folks are flabbergasted that the original had that much enthusiasm behind it, and others still wonder what kind of story you could tell after the first film. Well it turns out Ben Affleck and company went the Den of Thieves route by diving into character dynamics and amping up the action.
The Setup
Eight years after the events of the first film, our lethal accounting genius Christian is continuing his work when his contact at FinCEN informs him of some disturbing news. Christian's former contact at the agency, Raymond Knight, has been murdered and left behind a puzzling trail of clues involving child trafficking and she can't figure it out. Realizing he'll need some added muscle for the job, Christian reaches out to his estranged brother Braxton to help him track down the responsible parties and help him rescue a collection of kidnapped children.
The Accountant 2 is more or less what I wanted and expected from a second movie. One of the most interesting threads from the first movie is that the audience finds out that Jon Bernthal's character is actually our lead's brother and they have a big fist fight about it before agreeing to meet-up later. So picking up where they left off in a modernized version of Rain Man where both brothers are assassins and Dustin Hoffman's character can easily communicate.
Only, the movie actually picks up in the real world time between movies (about 8 years) so Bernthal's Braxton is still very bitter and angry at his brother at only asking him for help. It means the core appeal of the movie is these two emotional damaged brothers attempting to work together and bond while poking and prodding each other's sore spots.
I also really like the portrayl of Bernthal's Braxton who is portrayed less as a highly competent assassin and more of an abrasive dickhead who is so clearly craving emotional validation. His introduction scene in particular is one of the best subversions of an asassin intro in recent memory.
They also share a very personalized view of morality that puts them in conflict with Cynthia Addai-Robinson's Deputy Director who is shocked and terrified both by Braxton's profession and the ease with which the two brothers will do things like beat up a guy that might have information. It means we can have scenes with both brothers on the same page with darkly humorous bents about what they are comfortable with.
All of which builds to some big payoffs of tactical action where our brothers can either show off what they can do or work together for a joint morally upstanding goal while cycling through clips of assault rifle ammunition. And considering that our heroes are saving children who are the offspring of folks looking to immigrate into America by any means who are then victimized by rich white men, it certainly scratches an itch.
This idea of "highly competent man, with emotional blindspots, who's also lethal when the situation calls for it" is exactly what puts this movie into the modern "dad movie" category and is probably why the original movie got a sequel in the first place. There's a lot of overlap between these movies and The Equalizer series.
The flip side is that the other undertone of "dad movies" (aka father knows best) means the movie blows past a lot of moral questions about Christian and Braxton's tactics as either harmless or a necessary evil to get what they want. For instance, Christian's main source of information is his friend from a specialized school for kids with extreme cases of autism, much like Christian's own. Who is non-verbal but also a computer genius.
This time around she's got a team of...children who operate like Barbara's Oracle in Batman comics and are seen competing to see who can hack a woman's computer and phone the fastest without her knowing. Which is a giant can of worms that would probably require it's own separate review to unpack considering the conflation of autism with "special gifts" and the ease of which everyone is on board for this surveillance state stuff.
My genreal read is that this is the kind of stuff you do to make your movie more exciting and tense (i.e. the acquisition of information features a lot of quick cuts and intense music) without really thinking abou the larger implications.
But as I alluded to before, the movie it at its best when it leaves this stuff behind and focuses on the brother's humanity. Like how much Christian really cares and feels emotions even if he's not the best at things like flirting. And how much saving a young man that's "like me" means to him. Likewise we get to see how much it means to Braxton to spend time with his brother and find connection.
So much like it's two leads, The Accountant 2 is a bit clumsy but ultimately emotionally satsifying.
The Verdict: A Solid Dad Movie
While it's unlikely to earn any new fans, The Accountant 2 is a more straight-forward and fun film than the original. 7/10
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