In "The Accountant", Ben Affleck, who is forever linked with his erstwhile partner Matt Damon, gets to play both of Damon's most famous roles: he is a mathematical genius (an autistic savant) like Will Hunting and a weapons expert, like Jason Bourne.
The movie is not as memorable as the ones that feature those characters, however. It's shallow and predictable, with unnecessary bookends and a hard to follow plot. You don't need to follow the plot, though; the movie is a well-oiled machine, and I guess that's part of the problem. Nothing takes you by surprise, nothing jolts you. It's a good time waster, nothing more.
That the movie attempts to be a statement on autism outside of its absurd thriller plot might be the only original stroke. But then, the fact that it's a statement that says nothing new or interesting - autistic people aren't stupid, just different - shows that it's just another play in the hack director/screenwriter's handbook. It's a ploy to make you think you've seen something more important than a lacklustre action movie.
The movie is not as memorable as the ones that feature those characters, however. It's shallow and predictable, with unnecessary bookends and a hard to follow plot. You don't need to follow the plot, though; the movie is a well-oiled machine, and I guess that's part of the problem. Nothing takes you by surprise, nothing jolts you. It's a good time waster, nothing more.
That the movie attempts to be a statement on autism outside of its absurd thriller plot might be the only original stroke. But then, the fact that it's a statement that says nothing new or interesting - autistic people aren't stupid, just different - shows that it's just another play in the hack director/screenwriter's handbook. It's a ploy to make you think you've seen something more important than a lacklustre action movie.