Accountant 2

The sequel to the original Accountant, the Accountant 2 dares to consider the question, if Christian Wolff is a lethal Forensic accountant, is his estranged and also lethal brother a Forensic Accountant… too?

To be precise, this film's title is not actually Accountant 2, it’s Accountant Squared, because math. Get it? He’s an accountant. Anyway, you may recall the events of the first Accountant movie... I don’t, except that at the time, I remember being kind of surprised to see a film about a Forensic Accountant end in a massive gun fight, but whatever, my point is, you might recall the first Accountant movie.

But just in case you're in the same camp as I am, in the Accountant Cinematic Universe (the ACU), Boston aficionado Ben Affleck is the titular super-accountant, Christian Wolff, whose superpower is accounting, and also murder. This is one of those movies where autism is presented as a superpower, so as a result, while other people's emotions may confuse him, Christian is as cold-blooded with an audit as he is with a machine gun.

Basically, Christian Wolff is like Nathan Fielder meets John Wick.

He shows up to fix your business, and if need be, he will also to take out a room full of armed goons with deadly precision, but he’s also an accountant, so he's going to do it while wearing a pair of New Balance sneakers, khakis, a tucked-in shirt, and a Members Only jacket. 

The Movie

After a private detective named Raymond King is killed by cartel thugs while meeting with a mysterious assassin named Anais, Marybeth Medina, the deputy director of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, is called to identify the body. Medina, whose nickname I naturally assume is "Funky Cold," although this is never confirmed, was once King's protege, as he was once the director of FinCEN.

FinCEN is a real-life bureau within the United States Department of the Treasury, with a mandate to collect and analyze information about financial transactions in order to combat domestic and international money laundering, terrorist financing, and other financial crimes. This means that it's probably safe to assume FinCEN basically no longer exists, and that most of its staff has been fired by Trump, Musk, and some 20 year old DOGE douchebag with a history of date rape and a nickname like "Taint Boy" and for no other reason than the fact that financial crimes are the main way the entire Trump Administration has made their money, after inheriting it from their racist parents, of course.

Anyway, soon enough, Marybeth realizes that King was investigating something big, and her first clue is that right before he died, he scrawled the words "FIND THE ACCOUNTANT" on his arm.

Marybeth is a bit of a detective as well, so she knows this isn't a reference to any old accountant, but to the super-accountant and mass murder machine himself, Christian Wolff, someone she has previously encountered.

This is one of many times they refer to the events of the last movie.

All you really need to know about the first film is that it took place in Chicago about 8 years ago, that there was a bunch of math and a lot of shooting, and that all of this film's heroes were all in the previous film too, and that none of the bad guys were. Also, Anna Kendrick was in the last film, but she doesn't appear in this one. You don't specifically need to know this for this film, but I just thought I'd pass it on.

Unsure how to reach Christian, Medina reaches out to Professor Xavier's Institute for Autistic Super-hacker Children, the place Christian spent time in as a child, all in the hope that Christian's partner, his lady-in-the-chair, Justine–a non-speaking autistic adult super-hacker who coordinates and supports Christian's assignments, often while utilizing a group of autistic children, all of whom have very advanced super hacker skills too–can relay the message to him that she needs help. Justine is in fact able to relay this message, because this is literally the only way anyone can get ahold of Christian.

Once Christian gets the message, he drives his airstream to LA and finds Marybeth. There, he rearranges her stupid "regular person" murder-wall into a super accountant's version of a murder wall, revealing the whole picture of what King was investigating, which is a cartel/urban crime funded human trafficking ring running from Juarez to LA. Using the power of super-accounting, Christian realizes that they will need some help shooting all of these bad guys, so he enlists his estranged brother Braxton, who isn't a savant accountant, but he is a savant killer, and a professional hitman. Braxton is played by John Berenthal, who makes everything he's in better, and thus, Daredevil and the Punisher ride again.

Shit's about to get real...

After beating up a pimp and then illegally detaining him in their trunk, then sending their child-hackers to illegally retrieve a photo from the phone of a tourist from Iowa who just happened to be near the scene of King's murder, and happened to catch Anais's face on her phone while taking giddily cruel sad-face selfies with unhoused people in the background (the woman's password was CORN_FED), the trio of heroes discover that Anais was once an immigrant herself. And that she had once tried to cross the border, but she, her husband, and her son were all taken by the cartel. Her husband was killed, and the son (who is a super genius autistic kid like Christian, but the cartel doesn't know this, that's just for us to know) was put in a school/prison, so that they cartel could then force Anais to do housecleaning and sex work for the cartel. But then Anais got in a car accident, leaving her with severe face and brain damage, so now, after all of her surgeries and recovery, she looks completely different AND she's now a super assasin, because of something called Acquired Savant Syndrome.

Yep. This is totally the story, I swear.

Acquired Savant Syndrome is a very rare phenomenon where a person will demonstrate an exceptional aptitude in one domain, such as art or mathematics, despite a significant social and/or intellectual impairment which is generally due to a neurodevelopmental condition, such as autism, or because of a brain injury.

The film treats Anais as a kind of dark mirror image of Christian, but where he was born with his super-accountant murder machine skills, she got it through a bit of a backdoor loophole by flying head first through a car windshield. The downside for her is that she also lost all of her memories, so she now walks the Earth as an super assassin, not caring about her kid at all, or even remembering him, and just kind of enjoying being a globe-trotting sexy super-assasin, who often runs in the same circles as Christian's super-assassin little brother, Braxton.

This is bad news for Medina, who has decided that she's a wee bit miffed about all the illegalities that are shockingly going to come up somewhat regularly whenever you work with a super-accountant murder machine and their super-assassin little brother, because she has decided to go her own way and try to do things insiide the law, not outside. This of course is a dumb plan, and as a result, the cartels notice and put out a hit on her, and guess who got the contract...

That's right. It's Anais. The circle is now complete.

Anais tries to kill Marybeth, but Christian intervenes, and Anais starts to regain some memories because of a photograph of her and her family that Medina had tacked to her murder-wall. Anais doesn't regain enough of her memories to care that her son is in a cartel prison, or that he is about to be buried alive, but y'know... she does recover some, enough for her to be able to go murder some of the other bad guys. So, that means that it's up to Christian and Braxton to go save Anaïs's future super-accountant son, Alberto.

But will the super-accountant murder machine and his super-assassin little brother be able save the busload of precocious little children from being buried alive by the evil cartel, and all while using nothing but the power of American violence, and also math, presumably?

Spoiler: yes.

Later, everyone is happy, as the bad guys are now murdered and Alberto is being taken by Christian and Braxton to Professor Xavier's Institute for Autistic Super-hacker Children, so that he can join Christian's army of young super-hackers and eventually aid him in his mission to kill all bad guys and tax cheats. Also, the two brothers decide to go camping together.

God damn it, this is so fucking heartwarming.

So, right away I just wanted to let everyone know that I looked it up, and the main bad guy's right hand lieutenant guy in this movie is NOT yet another one of Ethan Hawke’s kids. Just fyi.

My favorite part of this movie is how Braxton is planning on getting a puppy, but he's being stymied at every turn by a woman named Margarent and the puppy gatekeeper bureaucracy she represents, and eventually Christian breaks down for him why this would be an incredibly bad idea, and also offers a solution:

“Do you have a permanent residence? Anyone to care for your dog during long absences? Do you keep a regular schedule in terms of eating, sleeping? No? You’re a cat person. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

Then the film ends with the cat distribution system successfuly delivering a big boy orange cat into Braxton's arms, after he finds it randomly standing on the side of a dusty road in the wilds of Chihuahua, Mexico.

This is the most believable part of this entire movie.

It was interesting to note that throughout the film, the majority of the cartel soldiers, in their pulled-up neck gaiters, t-shirts, jeans, and tact-vests, were all dressed exactly the same way as the guys who have been snatching people off the street in American cities lately.

Weird, right?

Must be the official bad guy uniform.

It was also interesting to note how the good guys in the film dress in a similar way, but sans pulled-up neck gaiters. I guess the message with that is that the good guys aren't ashamed of what they're doing, and also part of the reason you can easily tell that they're the good guys is because they're shooting all the guys in the pulled up neck gaiters...

This leads into the weird problem with this film, at least as I see it.

All of these John Wick type action films are just the latest version of the classic One Man Army films, something that Hollywood has been making forever. The big difference is, in the 80s and 90s, the One Man Army was pretty easy to spot, as he was usually a big muscle-bound freak. Then in the aughts, they were easy to spot because they were usually wearing black trenchcoats and sunglasses.

But then John Wick happened, the story of a moppy yuppie with a puppy, who then kills more people than smallpox out of a very understandable need to avenge his puppy. Ever since then, the One Man Army film has featured the Unexpected One Man Army main character. There are several ways to spot this guy. Maybe they're just quiet and unassuming. Maybe they're a family man. Maybe they're a little older. Maybe they're wearing a polo shirt and a fanny pack. Maybe they're a loner who keeps to themselves. Maybe they're all dirty and drunk. Maybe they're a hot chick. Either way, the story always goes the same way, some dickhead messes with someone they think is weaker, but then that person opens up a giant can of whoop-ass and proceeds to pour it all over everything, burning everything to the ground. It's a little worn out at this point, but still a fun formula. After all, who doesn't enjoy a tightly choreographed extended sequence of super fast and super brutal murders set to loud music, right? I know I do.

But here's the thing...

Where John Wick lives in a ridiculous world of secret kings and secret laws, black tie kevlar suit events, special ops kung fu assasin clans, and their heavily-tattooed rockabilly admin assistants (all which was ripped off from the comic book known as 100 Bullets), above all else, it's a clearly fictional and fanciful world.

Meanwhile, in the world of The Accountant, while also clearly fictional, it is populated with well-armed "urban" gangs and drug cartel bad guys who specialize in human trafficking, terrorism, and the killing and/or kidnapping of people in broad daylight on the streets of American cities, and all with impunity. It features Call of Duty-like heroes, wielding Call of Duty-like weapons, in the same way that Special Forces Operator supposedly do, and all while executing literal piles of Fox News bad guys without any issue at all, legal or otherwise, and if the cops do show up, it's only a momentary worry, as the cops are revealed to either be on the heroes side, or a traitor to good people everywhere, and thus, it's okay to kill them. There are two things that are crystal clear in this movie... One, it's always okay to kill with abandon because the bad guys always deserve it, and two, while these heroes may operate outside the law, they are doing it "the right way" which is obviously for the good of all humanity, and most likely devinely approved too. And so you say, well, yeah, but itsn't that all action movies? Sure, but the worst part about films like the Accountant is that it's all presented like it's "real" life, exaggerated real life, sure, but real life nonetheless, like this is the world right outside of your window, and these are the problems that are tearing this once great country apart while we all sob and salute the flag. It's basically no different from any of the Law & Order shows, or 24, or whatever cop shows they're currently playing during Prime Time on week nights on ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox. It's "America First" with all the (to be fair, perhaps blissfully unaware) KKK-rooted point of view sloganeering front and center, all targeting one specific demographic, who then see themselves as the righteous warriors on screen, always infallible and always right.

That's the world of the Accountant 2.

Every aspect of the film feels like it is specifically meant to feed directly into the screeching maelstrom of idiot conspiracy theory nonsense and racist paranoia that drives the average pea-brained suburban and small town white person’s perception and fear of "big cities." This is a completely unfounded and asinine fear, of course, one proven to be all the more stupid as the Big Cities are the places these same people all go to every weekend for sporting events, concerts, vacations, and their back-to-school clothes shopping needs. That reality then exposes the fact that their "fear" has never been about the cities themselves, but the people who live there, specifically the diverse communities found there, meaning that it's not fear, it's bigotry, it's hate. Which is why these "good" people, these supposed patriots, are all cheering on the fascism besieging the streets of LA., even though it's the exact situation they've claimed for year to be preparing to fight against, which is why they needed all of their stupid guns, but I guess it's okay when it's happening to "other" people.

And when you add in a dash of fear of the next generation, of technology, and autism as well, as a group of young autistic super geniuses hack everything with ease and speed, most especially when they hack a nice hard-working salt-of-the-earth white lady from Iowa, you’re basically hitting all of the preferred rabid flop-sweat fears currently plaguing the minds of too many white Christian suburban trash-holes and their doofus small town yokel cousins.

And thus, the agenda that seems implicit to this film.

The thing that bothers me the most about this film is that it doesn't feel like it's saying this shit on purpose. It feels more like the filmmakers (presumably) never interrogated their own point of view, and that all of this is merely the result of the usual boring-ass white straight cis-gendered Christian default. But that's worse, really, as that unconcerned ignorance is part of why we're here now. People will say “but it’s just an action movie,” and yeah, I know that, but when this fraudulent depiction of reality is all that certain groups of people ever hear, whether at their shitty local bars, on their crappy back decks, in their sad little drunken book clubs, from the twangy victimhood garbage they call country music now, the copaganda on the screen, the stochastic terrorism from the pulpit urging them to strike first, or the fear mongering xenophobic vomit from their “news" sources, then shit like this begins to feel more insidious. I mean, they even link the human trafficking in this movie to a fucking Pizza place...

So, despite an otherwise charming cast, the undercurrent of Qanon-flavored conspiracy nonsense, the white supremacy, the wellness grifts, the eager pro-gun nut fascism, and the casually lunatic bigotry just makes this film feel too gross for me to enjoy the handful of otherwise decent action scenes.