Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

The Accountant Double Oscar winner Ben Affleck plays a guy suffering from what seems to the audience to be a form of autism. He has a great difficulty communing with other people but he has a strong affinity for numbers. Numbers, figures, tallies and the like he can handle with ludicrous ease, people not so much. So he makes a career for himself as an accountant. Great, a story of a determined man who by dint of effort overcomes a debilitating mental handicap. We have a story to inspire and encourage. Well, lets take a breath. He succeeds by dint of effort, true, but also by hard training by his dad who never gave up on him. His clients are criminals of the worst sort who hire the precisely focused number cruncher to ferret out leaks in their money vaults. Maybe we should not be so easily inspired. Things take a very dangerous, bloody turn. He is as precise with weapons as he is with numbers. Director Gavin O'Connor has made several other films with the 2004 Miracle working out the best for him at the box office. Writer Bill Dubuque has only the Robert Downey Jr. film The Judge on his sheet so far, quite a good effort. Between the two of them we receive the most intricate and interesting story of the year. And we receive some of the most interesting characters, especially the Accountant himself and the T-man played by J.K. Simmons. The film is long enough that we have the back story of the main character filled up and filled in. Oscar nominee Anna Kendrick plays the leading lady, another accountant, who gets mixed up in the dangerous world of The Account, played by Affleck. Kendrick is well known for her comic roles but she certainly can act successfully in this crime drama. Other notable back up actors include twice Oscar nominated John Lithgow and recent Oscar winner J. K. Simmons. Also seen are Jon Bernthal (The Walking Dead), character actor Jeffrey Tumbor and Cynthia Addai-Robinson in a very strong and nuanced performance as a federal agent. For a successful movie, hire the best actors you possibly can and then give them something totally fascinating to do. Director Gavin O'Connor and his writer Bill Dubuque did exactly that. This crime drama with an autistic twist runs for a good long two hours and 8 minutes. It carries an R rating for plenty of bloody violence and a surplus of bad words. Please pay attention to the ratings when you think of bringing the smaller people to see this film. This film achieves the rare five saw blade award. Watch for this one at next year's Oscars.