THIS movie attempts to glamorise autism, a move which leaves me uncomfortable.
From the previous days, when a Rain Man character introduced viewers to the then not well known condition, now filmmakers feel a certain need to showcase a Marvel-type superhero with the condition.
Although I can see the concept gaining traction and, with this film, kicking off a franchise. The Accountant Strikes Back or The Accountant Returns, are some future titles that come to mind.
In this film, the central character of Christian Wolff (played by Seth Lee as a boy and Ben Affleck as an adult), suffers from Asperger’s Syndrome, a type of high-functioning autism characterised by difficulties in social interaction and nonverbal communication, along with repetitive patterns of behaviour and interests.
The movie opens with a robbery sequence and then comes some scenes with a young Christian, “stimming” (self-stimulatory behaviour) as he completes a jigsaw puzzle. His younger brother, Brax, offers no help when Christian goes a little bonkers when one jigsaw piece is missing. A girl, also autistic, helps him out.
Meanwhile, Christian’s parents learn about their son’s problem and then the story zips into the present, where the adult Christian is now a forensic accountant in a small town.
He helps an elderly couple with their tax issues. We soon find out that this nerdy and harmless accountant has clients around the world, who pay him in cash and kind of like Renoir and Jackson Pollock artworks for money laundering.
It’s just everyday book-keeping for Christian, who is a mathematics savant.
As he goes about his life, flashbacks show how his parents’ divorce over disagreements on what treatment he needed, and how his military psychologist father (Robert C. Treveiler) had ruthlessly trained him and his younger brother so that the former would not be bullied for being “different”.
As an adult, he is now a Cyborg or Terminator — an unassuming, lethal killing machine. His deadly skills include being well trained in the martial arts of pencak silat, which is not often featured in Hollywood movies.
Director Gavin O’Connor wanted that style showcased, calling it “incredibly efficient”, which “served our purpose in a very cinematic way”.
Special abilities aside, Christian sees the world through a very strict black-or-white code and not necessarily one that normal people adhere to.
So it’s okay for him to launder the money, as long as it is done right, in pure mathematical perfection.
Then, he gives away his earnings to charity, in particular the hospital which houses the girl who helped him with the jigsaw piece all those years ago.
To work out his anguish over his “difference”, Christian massages his legs with a wooden stick, even hurting himself. I know of autistic children who bite themselves. But I feel that such nods and nuances to autism are just too much for The Accountant, which is at heart, a typical crime thriller.
Christian later takes on a non-Mafia case as the US Treasury Department is hot on his tail. He is advised by a woman with a British accent on the phone, where the client specialises in constructing prosthetic limbs.
Christian reluctantly works with the company’s junior accountant (Anna Kendrick of Pitch Perfect fame), who had uncovered a US$61 million (RM255.10 million) discrepancy in the books.
Although there is no room for romance in this movie, it does serve up a hefty load of macho action.
Suddenly, his brother (Jon Bernthal of Sicario) reappears after all these years as the other great hitman in town.
But the end is not a bang-up conclusion.
Whatever the case, there are some really funny moments in this movie that provide much-needed relief to the fisticuffs and violence, as well as strange and illogical plot lines.
We are all flawed characters. But to make an autistic person into the comic-book hero is, in my opinion, veering into bad taste. But that is what seems to be the real point of The Accountant.
NOW SHOWING
THE ACCOUNTANT
Directed by Gavin O’Connor
Starring Ben Affleck, Anna Kendrick, J.K. Simmons, John Lithgow, Jean Smart
Duration 128 minutes
Rating PG18