The hot titles seared into my memory from 2016 include 10 Cloverfield Lane, Keanu, Everybody Wants Some!!, Kubo and the Two Strings, and The Accountant. At the time, I praised director Gavin O’Connor and writer Bill Dubuque’s film, saying it “… defies genre characterizations …” and contains the “… kind of twists that make each revelation feel like the start of a new chapter.” In preparation for the 2025 follow-up, The Accountant 2 (stylized in-film as The Accountant2), I revisited the film and found myself emotional at the depiction of Christian Wolff, the Ben Affleck-portrayed protagonist who’s the titular accountant, slowly revealed to be as meticulous with numbers as he is proficient with methods of killing. As an action fan, this wasn’t what moved me, but the recognition of the work O’Connor (The Way Back), Dubuque (The Judge), and Affleck (Dogma) put in to capture a presentation of an autistic individual that wasn’t a caricature. In 2016, I didn’t think much about the stims, the intense urge to finish what’s started, or the violent outbursts that come from dysregulation; in 2025, I do. With the trio returning for The Accountant 2, the main change is the execution of the thriller elements, removing the twisty chrono-mystery for a straighter tale, and keeping all the things that make the first film so strong while moving toward a new direction.
The film literally had me in tears. Stick around to find out why.
L-R: Daniella Pineda as Anais and J.K. Simmons as Ray King in THE ACCOUNTANT 2. Photo Credit: Warrick Page/Prime. © Amazon Content Services LLC.
Now working a private investigator, Ray King (J.K. Simmons) finds himself on a case bigger than expected and ends up dead. With only FinCEN Deputy Director Marybeth Medina (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) as an emergency contact and three words scrawled on his arm — “Find The Accountant” — one might presume that the case would go cold. However, upon making contact with The Accountant, Christian Wolff (Affleck), the two quickly pull together enough clues to restart the investigation. But as bodies start to drop, Christian realizes they need a specific kind of help, which means calling in his younger brother Braxton (Jon Bernthal), except the pair haven’t seen each other since that night at Lamar Blackburn’s (John Lithgow) house eight years ago.
Cynthia Addai-Robinson as Marybeth Medina in THE ACCOUNTANT 2. Photo Credit: Warrick Page/Prime. © Amazon Content Services LLC.
The Accountant 2 is comprised of three significant pieces: King’s case, Medina’s ethical struggle, and Christian’s desire for connection. The first is what powers the total narrative and provides the reason why Medina reaches out to Christian directly and what creates the opportunity for Christian to contact Braxton. Without the case, everything else can’t happen and, like any puzzle, the first piece is the most important. Executed swiftly, the introduction sequence gives the audience an idea of what King’s into with a mix of amateur and professional hitters (which also serves to setup Daniella Pineda’s (Plane) enigmatic Anaïs) before King drops and the catalyst is complete. In the first film, King comments how he wasn’t particularly good at his job and O’Connor maintains this by presenting a fight sequence that’s somewhat clever but painfully sloppy — the work of someone over their head. With so many recent physical performances by Simmons (Palm Springs) in which no one wanted to catch his hands, it may throw off audiences expecting more from King, so kudos to O’Connor for not ditching continuity for the sake of cinema. In fact, by maintaining this, the tone is set that what we’re going to see is not so extraordinary beyond specific training and aptitude. The case itself is a missing child which sets up all the violence that follows as a cat-and-mouse game ensues between the people not looking to get caught and Team Accountant. The interesting thing is that, given Christian’s and Braxton’s particular sets of skills, who is the cat and who is the mouse shifts depending on how much information one side has compared to the other. This is what aids the narrative tension throughout the film as each side, aware of it or not, grows more dangerous to the other (and more vulnerable) depending on what is or isn’t known.
Ben Affleck as Christian Wolff in THE ACCOUNTANT 2. Photo Credit: Prime Video. © Amazon Content Services LLC.
The second piece, often used for comedic effect, is Medina’s quest for justice (re: King’s murder) set against Christian’s methods. We know from the first film that she has a past with law enforcement (both on the wrong and right sides of it), but she has a good heart and is well-intentioned. It’s what makes King pick her as a possible replacement within the U.S. Department of Treasury Financial Crimes Enforcement Network and as the contact for Christian’s intermediary, Justine (played physically by Allison Robertson and vocally by returning actor Alison Wright). Her grappling with the more violent tendencies of Christian and Braxton is meant to generate pause in the audience, to get them to question why we’re rooting for so many breaches in due process, so many moments in which fruit of the poisonous tree should (and could) be evoked. This part doesn’t work as well, especially because we, the audience, are shown that Christian isn’t a sociopath, but an individual who operates through simplicity and, sometimes, when his data work doesn’t get the job done, physical methods do. It’s that direct thinking that makes him dangerous, though his tone will never shift because there’s no malice behind it. The epitome of professional. This makes his working relationship with Medina akin to a straight man, wherein his responses or reactions appear comical in comparison to hers. The wonderful thing being that not once does either Medina or even the script belittle him by making his autism diagnosis the only thing about him. Pushing things further, O’Connor and Dubuque expand what the audience knows about Justine’s work within her father’s Harbor Neuroscience Academy, which is positively brilliant in demonstrating that some unqualified asshats currently heading the Health and Human Services Department don’t know what they’re talking about regarding individuals with autism. King saw working with Christian as a means to an end, a way of keeping real bad people from hurting anyone anymore, and the arc presented here allows Medina to find her way within the system that King constructed and to determine if that’s right for her.
Jon Bernthal as Braxton in THE ACCOUNTANT 2. Photo Credit: Warrick Page/Prime. © Amazon Content Services LLC.
The third piece is the most important one for the film: the Wolff brothers. Played beautifully individually and as a pair, both Affleck and Bernthal (Baby Driver) give their characters incredibly dimension in what could easily be one-note performances. Bernthal is given more of everything this time around with the mystery over who this professional hitter is lifted, enabling a clearer and more prominent arc. Braxton is successful at what he does, but he’s incredibly lonely; his perceived confidence a mirage for this terror that exists within this man that he’s going to be alone — left by his mother, led by his father to go where his brother went, and then left by them both when one died and the other went to prison. He *longs* for connection, but cannot get it. By contrast, Christian wants connection but is unable to figure out the successful pattern to achieve it. When we catch up with him, he’s trying speed dating (a growth from where he was in the first film), but fails because his perspective of things doesn’t match anyone else’s at the event. When he calls Braxton, he doesn’t understand his brother’s anger at the lack of communication because he doesn’t think about connection as it correlates to communication. Christian knows that Braxton is in the world and, it seems, that’s enough. Thus, through the using of their talents to see where the clues left by King take them, the two are given chances to reconnect, reevaluate their roles, and maybe come together to fill the missing spaces in their lives. To this point, the trailers use a moment of conversation between the two brothers, sitting atop Christian’s airstream, where it sounds like Christian not calling Braxton is because of Christian’s autism diagnosis, to which Christian responds, “I’m just me.” The actual scene is not Christian-centered but Braxton-centered, with the real question being asked is whether Christian was avoiding his brother for some reason that Braxton’s been punishing himself for not knowing. It’s raw and emotional, made all the moreso by Bernthal’s willingness, through his performance, to shed the bravado and ask his brother a direct question that he knows Christian will answer likewise. Thus, the answer to the question “I’m just me” isn’t a statement about Christian and some kind of “woe is me,” but the best answer that Braxton could hear: there’s nothing wrong with you Braxton. Then, in the next scene with the brothers, I swear that O’Connor made a reference to The Dukes of Hazard (and if I can ever ask about it, I will) that just solidifies that the Wolff siblings are on the right track in their relationship, irrespective of the case that brought them together.
So why the crying throughout the film? I saw myself looking at my boys.
L-R: Ben Affleck as Christian Wolff and Jon Bernthal as Braxton in THE ACCOUNTANT 2. Photo Credit: Prime Video. © Amazon Content Services LLC.
At present, neither of them are savants. They display interests in a wide-range of areas — art, music, science — as well as playing video games, being outside, and generally doing what kids do. They are each other’s favorite playmates and grow sad when they’re not allowed to do something with the other, either due to individual/group dysregulation or due to one of them being otherwise occupied. They also each have sensitives to sound, touch, and temperature that they themselves are not in control of. The eldest struggles with context, as well as flexible thinking, so, despite a fondness for telling jokes, rarely comes up with them himself because, to do so, he’d have to understand the rhythm and timing of humor (though he’s made enormous strides in recent years). Each of them must finish what they start, otherwise a terrible rage and frustration arises, no matter what warnings for transitions are provided. While the two Accountant movies don’t get everything right about individuals with autism, they also don’t present them with the same Rain Man-esque tropes that follow this portion of the disabled community around, leading to the aforementioned unqualified asshats to adopt eugenic thinking regarding anyone diagnosed as part of the autistic community. Christian is a whole person, yes, raised with flawed logic by his father, but never cast out or set aside; rather, his father gave him tools to engage the world with on Christian’s terms. This, of course, reduced space for Braxton, who came to be defined in the wake of his brother; yet, the two still possess a profound love for each other. This is why I cried. In the rage Braxton feels at the perceived abandonment by Christian, especially over the last eight years, there remains a desire to be close to his brother that he demonstrates in nearly every scene. Likewise, though Christian is “just me,” he, too, wants to cultivate a relationship with his brother. Thus, their bickering, their prodding (intentional or otherwise), reminds me of my boys, young as they are, because I can see that, unless something terrible happens, they will be each other’s ride or die. Even now, when the youngest *thinks* his brother’s in trouble, he grabs a nearby Captain American shield and hops in the way. Even now, when the oldest *thinks* his young brother is scared or hurt, he hops in to console and comfort. Affleck and Bernthal have fantastic chemistry together, to be sure, but it doesn’t always translate to transference from the screen, but here it does. So much so that each quiet moment shouts at me, as if I’m seeing my boys strapped up and riding into battle (metaphorically, I hope), knowing that they’re going to do everything they can to look after one another. That’s who they are; not because of any diagnosis or genetics, but because of the kind of people they are and the bond they share.
L-R: Jon Bernthal as Braxton and Ben Affleck as Christian Wolff in THE ACCOUNTANT 2. Photo Credit: Warrick Page/Prime. © Amazon Content Services LLC.
There are certainly choices within The Accountant 2 that make the film come off as more of a beach read in the way that the mystery ties together and it gets resolved. Things are a little too neat, a little too connected, and a little too uplifting re the autistic community. This is where some the weaknesses start to show and they are certainly things that individuals can read as detriments to the disability community. However, with so many things that are right (via my anecdotal experience going in and out of therapy offices for the last five years), I can observe too many things that are right and treated with appropriate care; things that feel authentic and real, even in this secret world/power fantasy that exists within the thrilling world of The Accountant. In this view, when one puts the potential good against the potential bad, our balance sheet lands in the black.
In theaters April 25th, 2025.
For more information, head to the official Amazon MGM Studios The Accountant2 webpage.
Final Score: 4.5 out of 5.
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Categories: Films To Watch, In Theaters, Recommendation, Reviews
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