The Accountant2
I’ll cut to the chase… if you are planning to see The Accountant2 for the weird brotherly dynamics of autistic brothers Ben Affleck and Jon Bernthal, you’ll probably enjoy yourself. But if you are hoping to see a well written thriller, you will be sorely disappointed. The plot of Affleck’s sequel is preposterous and dependent on incredible logic-defying coincidences. That many plot points lining up would be impossible to predict, even for an idiot savant like Affleck’s Chris Wolff.
At the opening, we learn J. K. Simmons (who appeared in the earlier film but won’t be in the next sequel). He’s trying to track down a Hispanic family (father, mother, son) who disappeared 8 years earlier. He tries to get a mysterious woman assassin to help him. But he’s being hunted by the criminal gang that made the family disappear.
Pretty soon, Affleck’s accountant is called, and we eventually learn a criminal gang is capturing immigrant women and forcing them to be prostitutes, killing their husbands if necessary, and keeping their children hostage to keep the women compliant.
Affleck is able to learn impossible details because he has a financed a School for Gifted Youngsters in Westchester County, New York. These children are savants who can break into any computer network in the world and feed him data at a moment’s notice. (Who needs mutants when you have savants!)
For some reason, Affleck needs extra manpower, so he calls his brother to help out. The bro is played by Jon Bernthal, who happens to be an expert assassin for hire. Although it isn’t mentioned in the dialogue, Bernthal’s bro must be on the autism spectrum as well, as he has problems interpreting social cues, he constantly talks to himself, and has trouble controlling his temper. (But he looks good in his tight black underwear.)
Meanwhile, the ruthless woman assassin I mentioned earlier is stalking the same thugs as Affleck & Bernthal. Okay… here’s where the coincidences start to pile on! If you don’t like spoilers, stop reading here.
The mother from the family that Affleck is searching for is the woman assassin! Several years earlier, she suffered from a brutal beating which caused her brain to be rewired and erased her memory. After getting reconstructive surgery and developing new skills, she became a killer for hire.
On top of that, the woman assassin coincidentally works for the very same assassination network that employs Bernthal Bro! What are the chances of that?!?
And when Affleck finds and saves the boy of the family, the boy turns out to be autistic! So now he can enroll in Affleck’s School for Gifted Youngsters! Happy ending!
Well, not a happy ending for the dozens of thugs, goons, and pimps that Affleck & Bernthal kill along the way. These two are unstoppable and never miss. Killing henchmen is as easy as shooting fish in a barrel.
At various points during the story, all action stops so Affleck & Bernthal can have comedic brotherly disagreements. Those moments can be fun (the audience members near me love them), but I definitely got the vibe the scenes were adlibed - with what looked like Affleck neatly breaking into a laugh several times!
