One of the most under appreciated movies that has come out in the last five years is Gavin O’Connor’s The Accountant. This is one movie that should’ve had a much larger audience, but sadly, not too many people saw it. That’s why it didn’t make nearly as much money as it should have, which is unfortunate. Typically speaking, that means it shouldn’t be getting a sequel. I personally thought that was disappointing, but at least we got the movie. Does The Accountant even need a sequel? After the way the first one ended, I would say not exactly, since the ending was satisfactory. However, the ending was a bit of an open book, as protagonist Christian Wolff drives off into the unknown. Where does his journey go from there? Well, The Accountant 2 will answer that for us.
Gavin O’Connor himself has recently confirmed that The Accountant 2 is indeed going to happen. The deals for it have been made and this sequel is a go. That makes me very happy, because The Accountant is criminally underrated. Why was it so overlooked? I honestly don’t know. It had Ben Affleck as the lead character, but we all remember another movie he was in back in 2016 that was far more talked about. I mean, that movie didn’t do so well either, but you know what? The Accountant was actually a better movie.
I must say, though, watching Ben Affleck in The Accountant proves how truly underrated his acting abilities are. Christian Wolff is one of his best roles by far. Oh, and let’s not forget the other powerhouse actors who co-starred in the movie. First of all, we had J.K. Simmons playing the director of FinCEN, who was tasked with pursuing Christian Wolff. We also had Anna Kendrick as Christian Wolff’s “sidekick” so to speak, as she became his companion, as well as the person he chose to protect closely throughout the movie. And probably the most important supporting character in The Accountant was Christian Wolff’s younger brother Braxton, played by the very underrated Jon Bernthal.
Okay, let’s just get this out of the way. When Jon Bernthal popped up in the movie, we all thought that he was going to duke it out with Ben Affleck. You know what that means? Batman vs. The Punisher. Boy, that would’ve been a serious heart-pounder of epic proportions. Well, that didn’t actually happen because, spoiler alert, they were actually related. The interaction between them was a serious highlight in the movie and I really wanted to see more of their chemistry expanded on. I’m just a fan of the whole sibling rivalry story element, but the acting of Jon Bernthal and Ben Affleck was just superb. I’m very excited to see that continue in The Accountant 2.
Now what makes this movie so important that it should get a sequel, despite its underwhelming box office record? For one, it was just an awesome movie. The action in it was really eye-popping, especially since Ben Affleck was basically straight-faced during most of those scenes. Just keep in mind, it wasn’t like the action in Batman, where Affleck kept his face covered with the mask. With the stunt double doing most of the work in those scenes, the physical demand for Affleck himself wasn’t too intense. For The Accountant, however, he wore no mask. Ben Affleck had to spend a lot of time practicing some great fighting styles in order to prepare for the role of Christian Wolff. We got to see him pull off some seriously sick martial arts skills in all the action scenes, especially in the final act. Boy, all of that was a blast, another thing I’m looking forward to in the next Accountant movie. But great action doesn’t warrant a sequel, does it? Sure, The Accountant is an action-thriller movie, but there’s more to it than that.
When I praise the performance of Ben Affleck in The Accountant, I’m especially taking in consideration the type of character he’s playing. What makes Christian Wolff such a unique character is that he’s a very badass forensic accountant who knows how to handle military-grade weapons. Sounds like a character we’ve seen before in several action movies, except Christian Wolff is separated from them due to one crucial factor: he was diagnosed with autism at a young age and keeps learning to cope with it.
This is something we don’t typically see in protagonists in action movies. We see character flaws in our protagonists, but it’s pretty rare that we get one that has a handicap or disorder. In the case of Christian Wolff, his autism is something he has worked his entire life to live with. As a child, his military father put him through a brutal training regimen in order to have him overcome his disorder and to prevent anyone from taking advantage of him. As an adult, we see him function in a successful lifestyle, but his autism still prevents him from having a regular social life. This is something he wants to have, but his disorder makes it difficult for him to pursue it.
What’s even more interesting about The Accountant is that we get to see Christian Wolff deal with the symptoms of autism. For instance, whenever he prepares something, it has to be organized. He does this with every task that he has to finish, even if it’s organizing his silverware. Other examples include exposing himself to flashing lights and very loud music so he can build a tolerance to sensory overload. His disorder is something that clearly hinders him, but he constantly works to cope with it. That is probably what makes this character so intriguing.
It is for that reason The Accountant 2 needs to happen. I very much enjoyed seeing a unique character like Christian Wolff grow and there’s still room for more. What else can be done in the sequel? Well, I’m sure given his history with multiple criminal organizations, he’s sure to have some contentious interactions with them. I would be very stoked to see him do his thing once again.
I can’t wait for The Accountant 2 to happen. Gavin O’Connor is a very underrated director working in Hollywood today and this is one of his best movies. It deserves a sequel and now we’re getting one.
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