How to Watch the Accountant

The Accountant is an intelligent thriller. It stars Ben Affleck, Anna Kendrick, J. K. Simmons, Jon Bernthal, Jeffrey Tambor, Cynthia Addai-Robinson, John Lithgow, and Jean Smart.

The story focuses on Christian Wolff, a high-functioning autistic mathematician who works for criminal organizations. He's hired to investigate a company that has a huge discrepancy in their books. The Treasury department starts to look into his actions, and the body count rises.

The Accountant is an autistic mathematician

There’s a long tradition of depicting people with autism as savants, despite the fact that most aren’t. A popular conceit is that, thanks to their autism, they can perform mind-boggling mathematical calculations in their heads. While it’s true that some individuals with autism do exhibit such abilities, it’s far less common than you might expect.

Affleck’s quiet, tidy loner Christian Wolff isn’t your typical action hero, but he’s still got the super-skills to balance a company’s books and solve impossible math problems when his clients are under the gun. Directed by Warrior’s Gavin O’Connor and scripted by Black List scribe Bill Dubuque, The Accountant is a remarkably high-concept thriller that combines autism with the traditional hero-on-the-run theme.

The movie’s plot follows Christian as he works for a shady crime lord while being pursued by the Treasury Department. He meets Dana (Anna Kendrick), an accountant for a robotics company, who’s intrigued by his mathematical virtuosity. They have a few ersatz romance moments together, before being targeted by henchmen for their lives.

As a young boy, Christian was diagnosed as having high-functioning autism. He had a difficult time socializing, but his parents taught him to protect himself by going through extreme physical and mental training, including martial arts, to help him stay safe from bullying.

He’s also incredibly skilled at jigsaw puzzles. He can complete a puzzle with an image facing down in a matter of minutes, and he’s even capable of reciting the number pi to 22,514 places.

His super-skills have made him a savant, and he’s been called upon to resolve messy business deals for shady criminal enterprises. But when Dana discovers that he’s been hiding out from the IRS, the pair go to war, with Wolff dispatching dozens of henchmen using his math-based precision skills and Dana being hunted down herself.

Affleck plays the autistic accountant with such sincerity and seriousness, it’s hard not to root for him. It’s an especially touching moment when he’s trying to explain his condition to a woman who’s worried about him. The film’s other standout is a lengthy flashback that shows Wolff in his childhood, and it’s a heart-wrenching portrait of an individual who’s been pushed to the limits.

The Accountant is a CPA

The accountant is a professional who records financial transactions, prepares budget reports, and provides financial analysis to clients. They may also conduct audits of businesses or individuals, and file taxes for their clients.

Accountants and CPAs can work independently, or in partnership with other accountants. They can be hired by a company or a client, and they often work in a variety of industries, such as finance, healthcare, and technology.

To become an accountant, a person must earn a four-year degree in accounting or a related field. These degrees include coursework in finance, accounting, and business management. Many of these programs include an internship, which can be valuable for building skills in the workplace.

Those who want to become a CPA must pass a rigorous exam, known as the Uniform Certified Public Accountant Examination (Uniform CPA Exam). This test is administered by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and is unified across the United States and Canada.

In addition to passing the CPA exam, accountants must complete a minimum of 150 college credits in accounting and other business courses. They must also gain some work experience under the supervision of a licensed CPA to receive their license.

Some accountants take extra certifications in the field, such as Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) or Certified Management Accountant (CMA). These certifications can enhance their credentials in the eyes of employers and increase their salary potential.

Although an accountant and a CPA both perform similar tasks, there are some important differences between the two professions. A CPA is certified to provide services to the public, including tax preparation and government documentation.

They can be found in public accounting, which involves preparing financial statements for public companies and their investors. These documents must be compliant with all federal, state, and local laws and regulations.

In addition, CPAs can be licensed to practice before the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and they have the ability to represent their clients in front of the IRS in the event of a tax audit. They have the expertise to determine the best way to save money and minimize the amount of taxes owed by their clients.

The Accountant is a criminal

Christian Wolff is a high-functioning autistic accountant who works for several dangerous criminal organizations. He is a math savant with an affinity for numbers that makes him a sought-after forensic accountant, which means he gets paid to go through records and spot any discrepancies in the books of a client.

He has a small CPA practice in Plainfield, Illinois, where he unmasks insider financial deceptions for clients in the criminal world. When a state-of-the-art robotics company hires him to look through their books, his life takes a turn for the worse as the Treasury Department closes in on him.

His only ally is the head of the U.S. Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, Ray King (J.K. Simmons), who knows him as “The Accountant”. He also recruits young analyst Marybeth Medina (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) to track down this criminal.

The Accountant is a good movie for the first two thirds of its runtime, but it ultimately loses steam and starts to resemble a Taken-like action thriller, with too many story threads left hanging. The movie does, however, deliver some interesting moments in its climax as Chris (Ben Affleck) tries to figure out why he is being hunted by Ray King.

It’s a clever film that also offers some surprisingly good acting by Affleck and Anna Kendrick as Chris’ protegee, Dana Cummings. Their characters may not have the best dialogue, but they get a chance to be emotional and vulnerable, which is rare in this genre of movies.

There’s no denying that the movie has its share of silly elements. But director Gavin O’Connor manages to make the most of them, largely because of the way he frames the central story.

Affleck’s character has an underlying sense of guilt that motivates him to be a criminal, as he was forced to take martial arts lessons when he was a child and brutally disciplined by his stern military psychologist father. But his lust for violence has never really diminished.

The Accountant has some cool sequences that show the accountant’s cool-with-numbers methodology, where he’ll spot an account that seems suspicious. Then he’ll use his knowledge of forensic accounting to deduce that a value was likely faked based on patterns in the numbers.

The Accountant is a good guy

The accountant (Ben Affleck) is a forensic accountant who takes on all sorts of clients, whether they’re criminals, or rich businesspeople or governments. He’s so good at his job that he can write off hefty tax returns, and he gets paid to do it by people who are willing to pay for him.

He works for a company that makes smart prosthetics called Living Robotics, and he’s hired by Dana Cummings (Anna Kendrick) to audit their books because she suspects they have a $60 million skimming scheme going on. The account is a big payday for him, but it also means he’s in the crosshairs of the Treasury Department, which has a lot of money to catch him.

But even as his life falls into the wrong hands, he still manages to remain a good guy. He’s been a big help to his brother Braxton (Jon Bernthal) who runs a security company and also does some fix-it work for high-profile clients, and he’s been ratting out any criminals who don’t respect his personal moral code.

His brother is a big supporter of him, and he’s helped him put on a good face. The two of them have had their share of misunderstandings, but they’re now friends.

Christian is also a friend of a retired Treasury agent named Ray King (J. K. Simmons) who’s looking to pass the torch, and Medina (Cynthia Addai-Robinson), the new young treasury agent she hires, is interested in learning more about him.

While this movie stretches credulity a little too far, the action scenes are extremely realistic and the characters are all well-rounded. There’s a lot of jump cutting, but it’s largely effective in delivering a satisfying thriller.

The film also does a nice job of exploring autism, which is often seen as a disability. In one scene, a parent tells a scientist at Harbor Neuroscience that they should expect their nonverbal son to not be able to communicate with them, and the next shot shows him meeting Justine (Alison Wright), a young woman who is nonverbal but can use a digitally powered speaking device, implying that he hasn’t given up on trying to talk.