The Accountant
                                                                                                                 
Director: Gavin O'Connor
Year: 2016
Rating: 7.0
When it is tax season, here is one tip for all of you. Be kind to your tax person, pay your bill or he may very well kill you with his superior martial arts or sharpshooting abilities. There have been so many films over the past ten years in which a man or woman - has special skills. The killing kind. It has become a genre on its own.  I generally like all of them. I wonder if I am the only person with no skills. Can all of my friends, kill in a heartbeat too? I am not sure if Taken started this trend but it certainly popularized it. A father with skills when his daughter is kidnapped. Here we have a man (Ben Affleck) with two skills. Math and murder. He is autistic with few if any social skills, no friends but he loves order. Everything must be finished. Nothing left undone. He has an accounting office in a low-rent strip mall tending to small customers - but he also has a client list that includes crime groups from around the world. He shows them all the tricks of the trade in how to hide and launder money. And gets well-paid for his efforts.

 

He is hired by a man (John Lithgow) to go through the books of his corporation after a junior accountant (Anna Kendrick) found what seemed like an anomaly. In one long night with magic markers, he discovers that over $60 million has been siphoned off. Somebody isn't pleased and they hire professionals to kill him and the girl. He doesn't mind himself so much, but he has become fond of the girl because she likes math too. It becomes Rainman mashed with John Wick as the body count rises. You would need math skills to count them all. As a parallel plot, a Treasury Supervisor (J.K. Simmons) has tasked a young analyst (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) to find out who this mysterious man is that keeps showing up in photos of the mob and track him down. The film doesn't completely go where you expect it to with a twist or two along the way. Not sure if they make sense though after deep thought. Some solid John Wick action and it's a good role for Affleck since his character rarely has to show emotion or more than one expression. Jeffrey Tambor and Jean Smart have smaller roles but contribute to a fine cast.