Movie Review: The Accountant

If we've been aquatinted with each other up to a certain point, you would probably know that I have this hate-hate relationship with Math. To prove a point, when I was in High School I was in a "numerically challenged" group, what a way to scar a teenager for life eh? 

My brain sort of shuts down when I hear or see numbers, unless of course it has anything to do with my financial status. 

Despite my lack of affinity for Math I still enjoyed Batfleck...errr...Ben Affleck's "The Accountant". 

Imagine Affleck bringing his skills as the caped crusader and becoming an accountant and mind you, this is not your run-of-the-mill  Certified Public Accountant but something different entirely. 

You see, as a child Ben Affleck's Christian Wolff (not his real name-of course) was diagnosed as having autism. He is wickedly good with puzzles and numbers, we're talking mad skills, god-like, a real honest to goodness mathematician. 

"He has more in common with Einsten and Mozart, than he does with us." Says an expert at the film's trailer. 

Indeed, while Christian Wolff is a math savant (a skill that if I had would probably have saved me from childhood trauma and teenage stress) -although he lacks the social skills for him to blend in to be considered "normal" (didn't we all at some point growing up?). This didn't sit well with his hard edged, cold hearted father, who is also conveniently in the army. He believes that Christan should not be cuddled and shielded because of his autism but rather should be exposed to what makes him uncomfortable (bright lights and loud music) -this plus intense training in martial arts should help Christian lead a "normal" life or at least get by as a high functioning individual with autism. 

The film does not follow a linear format as it uses flashbacks to unveil Christian's brutal training-err-upbringing (which his father ensured) then goes to the present storyline which shows the audience what a day in the life of " The Accountant" looks like. We see Christian helping a financially-troubled couple write off taxes and skillfully avoiding yet another blind date. 

The audience also sees Christian's other life, they know that he is no ordinary accountant, since he has an RV inside a storage unit stocked full with all sorts of guns and weapons, cold cash in different currencies, passports, rare and expensive art, gold bars and most importantly some really valuable comic books. 

He talks to an unknown woman who advises him to take a legitimate client to leave a clean trail. Wolff is then soon working as a consultant for "Living Robotics" where a bright young accounting clerk, Dana Cummings (Anna Kendrick) -probably the only cheery and relatively "normal" character in the film reports some discrepancies in the books. 

While Christian plays a normal consultant by day, the audience is given a glimpse of what he really does and that is play accountant for different criminal organizations, from drug lords to mobsters. 

"Who survives this kind of clientele?" Asks Ray King (J.K. Simmons) the director of the Treasury Department Crime Enforcement Division, who blackmails...err..instructs a young treasury agent Marybeth Medina (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) to find out the identity of "the Accountant". 

Turns out there is more going on in "Living Robotics" despite the seemingly good natured owner, Lamar Blackburn (John Lithgow). Christian obsessively tries to uncover the secrets in "Living Robitics" all the while, King and Medina are getting dangerously close to finding out his true identity, oh and there's also an unknown assassin, Jon Bernthal who is trying to blow Christian's math-inclined head off. So yeah, there is definitely a lot going on. 

A big puzzle to solve with surprises and twists at every corner, "The Accountant" will keep you guessing until the very end. 

Ben Affleck is spot on in his portrayal of Christian Wolff, he is brilliant and obsessive as a mathematician yet awkward around other people, which shows Christian in a vulnerable light, making audiences warm up to him. 

7 out of 10. At times, the film may feel as if it is made up of many different genres, this is something that may or may not sit well with an audience member and some revelations may or may not be satisfying, it really depends on who's watching, the audience that I was a part of were engaged and engrossed. I was engaged and engrossed and I enjoyed it. 

It's interesting how movies can help you enjoy the things you otherwise would not (like, Math in my case) and with impressive performances from a stellar cast, a fast paced plot, an interesting puzzle to solve and action sequences straight out of Batman's own choreography (Indonessian martial arts-"pentjak sikat" -very refreshing and deadly efficient) what more can I ask for? 

"The Accountant" is in cinemas November 20.

Images courtesy of Warner Bros. 

Movies: AFFLECK LEARNS INDONESIAN FIGHTING STYLE FOR “THE ACCOUNTANT”

Ben Affleck stars in Warner Bros.' action-thriller The Accountant as Christian Wolff, a specially trained assassin who happens to be a math savant suffering from Asperger's Syndrome. Director Gavin O’Connor knew that Christian should have an idiosyncratic fighting style, forged by his childhood training and his personal penchant for order.

O'Connor maintains, “I wanted to approach the action through character, with the thought being when Chris got into a situation that required violence, he would eliminate the threat as quickly and economically as possible. It’s math. It’s ‘How do I make my move and get them off the chessboard?’”

Conferring with stunt coordinators Sam Hargrave and Fernando Chien, the director explored various types of martial arts. Nothing quite fit the bill until they showed him an Indonesian method that is less widely known, called pentjak silat. “I immediately said, ‘I want that,” he recalls. “I’d never even heard ofsilat before, but it’s incredibly efficient, so it served our purpose in a very cinematic way. We honed in on that form and built the action around it.”

Hargrave and Chien, together with their stunt team, started training Affleck, keeping in mind O’Connor’s desire to mirror Chris’s persona in the action. Chien confirms, “His style needed to be almost surgical—very linear and direct. He wouldn’t bounce around like a boxer. We mainly focused on silat, but because of how dynamic Ben needed to be in his fights, we also taught him judo, jiu-jitsu…everything from the ground up, but extremely stylized.”

“This martial arts technique hasn’t been seen in too many movies before so it felt fresh and new,” Affleck says. “I loved the style, so I dove into training as hard as I could. I spent months ahead of filming learning elaborate fight choreography, which involved a lot of flips and throws. Performing almost all of the action myself was difficult and demanding, but, luckily, I had the benefit of some really strong coaches and stunt performers who came up with some cool and unique stuff for me to do. It was very intense, but when it all came together and was done right, it could be beautiful and elegant, even though it was brutal.”

Chien acknowledges that Affleck, who came into the film right after portraying Batman, was already in fighting shape—just not in the same way that Christian had to be. “For that film, he became really buff and muscular, but this character needed to be slick and more quick—very direct and explosive—so we did more martial arts conditioning with a lot of dynamic movements.”

Hargrove adds, “We had a small gym where we would go for about two hours a day. Fernando and I put him through his paces, making drills out of the choreography and having Ben practice them over and over again until every move became like second nature to him. We sometimes drove him to the point of exhaustion, but Ben never gave up. He put in the work and came back stronger every day.”

O’Connor observes, “Ben had to travel different paths in making sure we got both the physical and emotional aspects of the character right, which was vital. He was working out every day and getting all the choreography down because he was doing most of it himself. In just a short amount of time, he had to look like he’d been studying his entire life, so it was a crash course for him and I think he did an amazing job.”

Opening across the Philippines on Nov. 02, “The Accountant” is distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment company.

Movies: MURDER-BY-NUMBERS WITH BEN AFFLECK IN “THE ACCOUNTANT”

Two-time Academy Award winner Ben Affleck, who has been recognized for his work as a director, actor, writer, and producer, now dominates the big screen with a critically acclaimed performance in Warner Bros.' action-thriller The Accountant. The recent US No. 1 hit opens across the Philippines on November 02.

Affleck stars as Christian Wolff, a math savant with more affinity for numbers than people. Behind the cover of a small-town CPA office, he works as a freelance accountant for some of the world’s most dangerous criminal organizations. With the Treasury Department’s 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 where an accounting clerk (Anna Kendrick) has discovered a discrepancy involving millions of dollars. But as Christian uncooks the books and gets closer to the truth, it is the body count that starts to rise.

“The great thing about The Accountant is it’s smart and it has a ton of action and fun twists,” notes Affleck. “And when it all comes together, I think the audience is in for a surprise.”

As The Accountant opens, we meet Christian Wolff as a child whose parents are seeking professional help for him. Telling the couple their son is actually more gifted than handicapped, the neurologist offers to work with him. But Chris’s dad has his own ideas of how to prepare his son for a world that can be harsh for anyone deemed “different.”

Director Gavin O’Connor shares, “His father knew people could be cruel to a kid like him, so he decided to raise him with the tools he had learned as a military man. Maybe there could have been another way to go about it, but that’s what he knew.”

“Chris’s father puts him through all kinds of rigorous training to toughen him up for a world he thinks could hurt him,” says Affleck. “Instead, in a way, he ends up damaging him even further. I thought that was an interesting theme—how he reconciles his past with the man he is now.

“What resonated with me about this character was not the ways he is different, but the ways he is similar to everyone else,” the actor continues. “He grapples with the differences between himself and what is considered ‘normal,’ and those pose real challenges for him to get by in life. But deep down he’s very much the same: he wants to be happy, he wants human contact, he wants love, he wants friendship… He has things that bother him, like we all do, but he has goals in his life that he wants to meet, and he wants to succeed. He just defines those things differently from how other people do.”

Prior to the start of filming, O’Connor and Affleck engaged in research they knew was essential “to make sure we got this character right,” the director says. “We all have our advantages and disadvantages as people, so it was important to me that we embrace Chris as an individual and never look at him as a tragic figure.”

“I was lucky,” Affleck says. “I had my director doing research with me, which gave us a shared vocabulary and made it a lot easier. There’s no task Gavin won’t undertake if he thinks it might make the movie better. We learned that there’s quite a range to what people refer to as being on the spectrum. Ultimately, I tried to strike a balance between letting the audience in on what’s going on with Christian and not doing it in too obvious a way.”

O’Connor was so impressed with Affleck, he stated, “I would make every movie with Ben if I could. He just poured himself into the role, and the more you give him to do, the more he just keeps attacking it.”

Affleck recently starred as Bruce Wayne/Batman in the worldwide blockbuster “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.” He will reprise the role in the upcoming action adventure “Justice League,” slated for release in November 2017, and he is also set to direct and star in a new standalone Batman film. Also upcoming, he directed and stars in “Live by Night,” a period action drama, due out in January 2017. Affleck also wrote the screenplay for the film, based on the novel by Dennis Lehane.

“The Accountant” is distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment company.

Movies: “PUNISHER” JON BERNTHAL IS BEN AFFLECK'S RIVAL IN “THE ACCOUNTANT”

He found fame as Frank Castle aka Punisher in the Netflix series based on Marvel Comics’ Daredevil, which has spawned a spinoff series called Punisher which he likewise headlines. Now Jon Bernthal stars as deadly hitman Brax in Warner Bros.' action-thriller and recent U.S. no. 1 hit The Accountant.

Directed by Gavin O’Connor (Warrior), The Accountant tells the story of Christian Wolff (Ben Affleck), a math savant with more affinity for numbers than people. Behind the cover of a small-town CPA office, he works as a freelance accountant for some of the world’s most dangerous criminal organizations. With the Treasury Department’s 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 where an accounting clerk (Anna Kendrick) has discovered a discrepancy involving millions of dollars. But as Christian uncooks the books and gets closer to the truth, it is the body count that starts to rise.

The Treasury Department is not the only one on the hunt for Christian. Somehow, his “legitimate” assignment has unexpectedly put him in the crosshairs of a crack hitman named Brax, whose deadly skills rival Chris’s own. Affleck attests, “Brax is proficient in a way that’s commensurate with Chris, and we get a sense that these two mysterious characters are on a collision course.”

Cast in the role, Jon Bernthal describes Brax as “highly unpredictable and extremely dangerous and he seems to enjoy what he does. He’s a lone wolf who is quite capable of taking care of business by himself.”

O’Connor states that Bernthal was his first and only choice for the role. “I wanted Jon to play Brax because he’s a great actor and I knew he would bring ingredients to the character that I was looking for.”

Responding in kind, Bernthal says, “I’m a huge fan of Gavin’s movies and have been dying to work with him, so when the phone rang, I was in. Gavin is a real actor’s director and it was a real honor to be among the group of actors he put together for the film. I’m so glad I got to be a part of it.”

Bernthal underwent training to play the ruthless mercenary Brax, under stunt coordinators Sam Hargrave and Fernando Chien. Chien clarifies, “What we wanted to do with Brax was to create a counter to the style of Ben Affleck's character, Christian. Brax is more rough and tumble; he likes to mix it up. Jon has a background as a legit boxer and that frenetic type of boxing movement, where he’s in and out, left and right, punches in bunches and continually coming at his opponent, is in contrast to Christian.”

“Brax is more freestyle,” Hargrove agrees, “so we worked to differentiate the two characters, with one being very methodical and the other a bit more wild. And then you have Jon, who, from day one, was 100 percent game for anything and never missed a beat. Because of his boxing experience, he picked up the moves very quickly. It makes our job easier when you have an actor who has actually fought and can readily adjust to what we need.”

Bernthal concludes, “I like to do all my fighting myself and I came in feeling pretty prepared and confident, but these guys had a level of expertise that I can only dream of. It was great to train with them every day, learning all these moves and combining different styles to design the fights. The entire stunt team on this movie was unparalleled and it was a thrill to work with them.

Opening across the Philippines on Nov. 02, “The Accountant” is distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment company.

Movies: ANNA KENDRICK, THE RELIABLE WHISTLE-BLOWER IN “THE ACCOUNTANT”

Academy Award-nominee Anna Kendrick (Up in the Air) stars in Warner Bros.' new action-thriller “The Accountant,” as Dana Cummings, an accounting clerk who's in the center of a multi-million-dollar anomaly.

(Watch The Accountant featurette Solving the Puzzle at https://youtu.be/mN6i2NDFBqY.)

Directed by Gavin O’Connor (Warrior), The Accountant tells the story of Christian Wolff (Ben Affleck), a math savant with more affinity for numbers than people. Behind the cover of a small-town CPA office, he works as a freelance accountant for some of the world’s most dangerous criminal organizations. With the Treasury Department’s 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 where an accounting clerk (Kendrick) has discovered a discrepancy involving millions of dollars. But as Christian uncooks the books and gets closer to the truth, it is the body count that starts to rise.

Anna Kendrick describes her character, “Dana is the one who first noticed that something isn’t adding up in the company finances, so she’s a little disappointed when Chris comes in and takes the whole investigation out from under her. She’s not necessarily ambitious, but she wants to be included.”

“Dana has this bubbly personality, and that’s the last thing Christian wants when he’s trying to work,” producer Mark Williams suggests. “But he soon realizes she speaks his language as far as numbers go; she gets exhilarated the same way he does when the pieces start to come together. For that reason, he starts to bond with her and care about her.”

As Chris shows Dana what he’s found, “she gets reenergized by the idea that they’re working together to solve this puzzle,” Kendrick asserts. “She’s intrigued by him because he’s sort of a dorky accountant, but there’s something mysterious, too, which becomes even more obvious when things take a frightening turn. Basically, nerding it up with Chris is the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to her,” she laughs.

Kendrick says she shares that sentiment from her own professional perspective. “Working with Ben, as well as Gavin, was hugely exciting for me, too. It was especially interesting acting opposite Ben in this role because Chris is so uncomfortable relating to people, but Ben found a way to make it so charming that Dana is drawn in by his vulnerability. He’s a big guy and physically stronger, but on an emotional level, he’s the one Dana feels needs to be protected.”

The admiration is mutual. “Anna brings a tremendous energy and honesty to her scenes,” Affleck remarks. “She’s someone I admired a lot beforehand, so I was thrilled to have the chance to work with her.”

O’Connor adds, “One thing I discovered about Anna is she can take the dialogue in a scene and—no matter how many times you’ve heard it—create an entirely new interpretation. Every take would be a variation on the theme of how she played it, and I loved that.”

Kendrick says she especially appreciated the director’s “reverence for the emotional content,” noting, “It’s an interesting thing because, in many ways, Gavin is such a dude. He and Ben would get so excited about all the action sequences, but then he also took such joy in the really sweet, emotional scenes.”

Opening across the Philippines on Nov. 02, “The Accountant” is distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment company.

Movies: INVENTIVE SCRIPT ADDS UP TALENTED CAST FOR “THE ACCOUNTANT”

The cleverly constructed screenplay of Warner Bros. Pictures’ new thriller The Accountant drew the film’s impressive acting ensemble, led by Ben Affleck (Batman v Superman), Anna Kendrick (Pitch Perfect), J.K. Simmons (Whiplash), Jon Bernthal (TV's The Punisher), Jeffrey Tambor (TV's Transparent) and John Lithgow (Interstellar).

“It kept me guessing until the very last page,” Affleck states, “and I thought it was very smart, rich in detail and in character depth, and inventive in its evolution.”

“Part of my job as a director,” Gavin O’Connor says, “is surrounding myself with people who are really good at what they do—people who are going to constantly lift up the material and make me better and make the movie the best it can be. All of these actors are of that caliber.”

In “The Accountant,” Christian Wolff (Affleck) is a math savant with more affinity for numbers than people. Behind the cover of a small-town CPA office, he works as a freelance accountant for some of the world’s most dangerous criminal organizations. With the Treasury Department’s Crime Enforcement Division, run by Ray King (Simmons), starting to close in, Christian takes on a legitimate client: a state-of-the-art robotics company where an accounting clerk (Kendrick) has discovered a discrepancy involving millions of dollars. But as Christian uncooks the books and gets closer to the truth, it is the body count that starts to rise.

Anna Kendrick plays Dana Cummings, a junior accountant who uncovers a problem in a robotics firm in which Christian was called in to fix. “She’s intrigued by him because he’s sort of a dorky accountant, but there’s something mysterious, too, which becomes even more obvious when things take a frightening turn. Basically, nerding it up with Chris is the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to her,” she laughs.

J.K. Simmons plays Ray King, head of the Treasury Department’s Crime Enforcement Division, who is determined to find the identity of the underworld numbers cruncher known only as “the Accountant.” “What fascinated me about Ray is that he’s this real alpha male when we meet him and then, as the story develops, we find different aspects to him, as we do with most of the characters. It adds a lot of depth and some surprises.”

Jon Bernthal plays crack hitman named Brax, whose deadly skills rival Chris’s own. Bernthal describes Brax as “highly unpredictable and extremely dangerous and he seems to enjoy what he does. He’s a lone wolf who is quite capable of taking care of business by himself.”

Living Robotics is headed by its founder, Lamar Blackburn, played by John Lithgow. “Lamar’s great passion is helping people who have lost limbs by making what he calls ‘neuro-prosthetics,’ which connect mechanical limbs with the actual muscles and nervous system of the body,” Lithgow says. “He’s a technological genius, so you have these two people, Lamar and Christian, both with extraordinary minds, who are put together.”

Christian Wolff’s background and distinctive skill sets are largely established through flashbacks, beginning as a child, and later including a stint in prison. There, he forms a bond with a fellow inmate and former black money accountant named Francis Silverberg, played by Jeffrey Tambor. Tambor affirms, “Francis is Chris’ mentor in prison and, in a way, it’s a very loving father-son relationship. It was a wonderfully written script with a beautiful puzzle to it, and I think everyone will really enjoy trying to work it out.”

Opening across the Philippines on Nov. 02, “The Accountant” is distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment company.

Movies: “THE ACCOUNTANT” HAS A DARK SECRET LIFE IN RIVETING NEW THRILLER

It’s always compelling when people have secrets—when you think someone is one thing and then discover they’re something else entirely,” says Gavin O’Connor, director of the upcoming thriller “The Accountant” from Warner Bros. Pictures.

That is certainly the case with the title character of “The Accountant.” At first glance, math savant Christian Wolff seems to be nothing more than a storefront CPA, right down to his spreadsheets and pocket protector. However, his usual clientele are among the world’s most powerful crime lords, and his mild-mannered demeanor and somewhat innocuous appearance belie the fact that he may be more dangerous than any of them.

Ben Affleck, who stars in the role, notes, “The story speaks to the duality in all of us. It might be easy to pigeonhole a guy like Chris, but we find out he’s capable of much more than you imagine.”

The actor goes on to reveal that there is another unexpected wrinkle to Christian, who is able to crunch more than just numbers. “On the one hand, he’s this effectively trained fighter and on the other, he’s a math savant. Those facets of his personality—seemingly at odds in him—were unlike anything I’ve ever done before and made it both exciting and challenging.”

O’Connor agrees. “The center point of the film was this fascinating character that I loved and wanted to explore. How did he become this man? How did he get those skills? How did he become this lethal fighter? The story has intertwining puzzles, which gave it a high IQ factor and made it especially intriguing.”

Screenwriter Bill Dubuque affirms, “The concept of an accountant—a profession that we normally think of as pretty mundane—who is outside what most would consider conventional and had extraordinary abilities was something different. If you’re a mainstream company and think someone’s embezzling funds, you have a team of accountants who can determine where the money is going. But if you’re a drug cartel or a Mafia kingpin, you can’t do that. You’ve got to be able to call somebody who can come in, figure out the patterns in your books, and say, ‘This is where the leak is.’ And then get out. As I thought more about what would make this person special, I hit on the notion that he is on the autism spectrum. But he uses it to his advantage, and I just loved the idea of that.”

O’Connor emphasizes, “We learned the term ‘spectrum’ is especially fitting because there is really no single type of autism; every person is an individual and at a different place on that spectrum. Christian is fictional and not based on anyone in real life—his remarkable aptitude for figures is a gift and his physical attributes are a product of his unique upbringing.”

Dubuque surrounded Christian with other characters that are just as multifaceted, pointing out, “Almost no one is really who they seem to be.”

Producer Lynette Howell Taylor says, “Bill created a fantastically written screenplay. I had never read anything like it before and found it completely unpredictable, which is always a good sign. There were twists that took me by surprise and I had a couple of gasp moments. That’s what ultimately made me want to make the movie.”

Opening across the Philippines on Nov. 02, “The Accountant” is distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment company.

Movies: “THE ACCOUNTANT” MAIN TRAILER HEIGHTENS THE MYSTERY

The main trailer for Warner Bros. Pictures' new suspense thriller “The Accountant” starring Ben Affleck has just been released and may be viewed at https://youtu.be/21GKztMPdpw.

In the film, Christian Wolff (Affleck) is a math savant with more affinity for numbers than people. Behind the cover of a small-town CPA office, he works as a freelance accountant for some of the world’s most dangerous criminal organizations. With the Treasury Department’s 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 where an accounting clerk (Anna Kendrick) has discovered a discrepancy involving millions of dollars. But as Christian uncooks the books and gets closer to the truth, it is the body count that starts to rise.

“The Accountant” also stars Oscar nominee Anna Kendrick, Oscar winner J.K. Simmons, Jon Bernthal, Jean Smart and Cynthia Addai-Robinson, with Jeffrey Tambor and two-time Oscar nominee John Lithgow.

O’Connor directed the film from a screenplay by Bill Dubuque (“The Judge”). The film was produced by Mark Williams and Lynette Howell, with O’Connor, Jamie Patricof and Marty Ewing serving as executive producers.

Opening across the Philippines on Oct. 19, “The Accountant” is distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment company.