THE ACCOUNTANT

Non l'abbiamo trovato spesso in tale stato di grazia! Forse più come regista che come attore! Ma qui, nelle vesti di questo personaggio, 'diverso' sul piano personale e sociale, eccentrico a dir poco, che è poi di fatto un vero e proprio scrigno di sorprese, brilla di luce propria, cavalcando da illustre interprete una sceneggiatura fatta di tic, di silenzi e di tutte le irritazioni represse a grappolo di chi fin da bambino ha dovuto fare i conti con una sindrome a dir poco invasiva come quella 'di Asperger', imparentata a stretto giro di posta con l'autismo e comunemente considerata una forma dello spettro autistico "ad alto funzionamento". Eppure, ci sono momenti in cui ci si chiede quale sia stato il male maggiore per il primo protagonista, il Christian (Chis) Wolf di Ben Affleck, se l'autismo o un padre militare e crudelmente inflessibile come il suo, determinato in ogni modo

ad 'addestrarlo' per la vita futura, con il pieno controllo delle particolari fobie, senza pietismi di sorta. Rigurgiti di memoria che in momenti particolari affiorano nella mente del nostro incredibile 'contabile', distante, criptico, silente e perennemente innescato sulla marcia 'in automatico', simile ad un automa, costantemente a colloquio, in auto, con una sorta di 'navigatore' di alta informatica (scoprire di cosa si tratta verso la fine, è solo una delle più sensazionali e commoventi trovate del film!). Come dire, una condizione esistenziale a metà tra Forrest Gump, che aveva una madre altrettanto determinata a rendere suo figlio autosufficiente a dispetto della malattia ("ricordati, tu non sei diverso da qualsiasi altro") e il Raymond Babbitt di Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man, per l'appunto con eccezionali doti matematiche, e per l'appunto con un fratello (il Charlie Babbitt di Tom Cruise) con cui avere a che fare, per altre ragioni e con dinamiche

opposte. Ben Affleck con il suo Chris non fa rimpiangere né l'uno né l'altro, e va spedito per la sua strada. Un'altra strada! Anzi, pian pianino ci sorprenderà con altre strade nella strada che credevamo fosse quella maestra. E invece facciamo persino fatica a seguirlo in quel che ci si para davanti come vero e proprio dedalo. Un labirinto entro il quale il nostro Chris/Affleck si sente semplicemente a casa.

La regia di Gavin O'Connor (Pride and Glory, Warrior) crea in questo The Accountant un qualcosa di inedito, al di là delle vaghe familiarità tematiche, dimostrando padronanza e talento inusuali nell'uso della macchina da presa con la tempistica e con gli scorci di visione del protagonista, adeguando la sceneggiatura scarnificata ed incisivamente essenziale, con frasi smilze ma piene di quei contenuti che faranno la differenza quando quel bambino problematico dovrà cavarsela da solo nella vita da adulto. Si associa di buon

grado il montaggio che alterna in maniera altrettanto eccentrica cruciali momenti di quell'infanzia a cruciali momenti della fase adulta. Ne esce un film che sa farsi unica, zampillante e tensiva soggettiva del protagonista. Quella di un personaggio che si sente male qualora gli sia impedito di finire un lavoro, magari riempiendo di conteggi le vetrate dell'ufficio. Potrà risultarvi incredibile che un personaggio così tanto 'rattenuto' abiti un contesto declinato in pieno thriller, di quelli perfettamente in grado di tenere incollati alla sedia senza mai un calo di attenzione. E dire che i contabili possono essere così noiosi! In una struttura circolare che ritrova alla fine l'imboccatura dell'anello proprio laddove si era aperto, ogni tessera di questo intricato puzzle troverà la sua precisa collocazione, ed il thriller intinto nel noir si vestirà a festa con i colori più caldi e solari di forti legami affettivi, indissolubili, dell'amore per l'arte non soltanto

come investimento finanziario, e dell'amore per l'arte... di esistere, nel bene e nel male.

While audiences wait for Ben Affleck's Batman movie, this unusual thriller is just comic-book-like enough to tide them over.

Say what you will about Ben Affleck as Batman, or Jack Ryan, or any number of other action heroes that have seemed to be a stretch for the boy-next-door star, but Affleck is a terrific fit for “The Accountant,” in which he plays an autistic assassin. Though his choice in material is strong, the actor has always been a strange kind of thespian, one who seems so normal and non-actorly that most of his performances feel like watching one of your buddies up on screen, pretending to be someone he’s not. Here, Affleck, who formerly drew the short end of the stick playing the dumb townie to Matt Damon’s math savant, finally gets to embody the numbers whiz, and also to run around shooting some heavy-duty guns: It’s like Will

Hunting and Jason Bourne rolled into one, brains and bullets. What’s not to love?

Based on a deliciously pulpy Black List screenplay by Bill Dubuque, “The Accountant” was one of those projects that admirers imagined would never get made — and maybe they had a point, seeing as how the script casually assumes that someone with Asperger’s Syndrome is potentially wired to become a ruthless killing machine. In the wrong hands, the screenplay could have been as controversial as Brian De Palma’s “Dressed to Kill” was with the trans community. But here, director Gavin O’Connor (“Warrior”) demonstrates the right way to handle such material, elevating what is essentially an exploitation movie into a zen character study, one that takes its pound-of-flesh antihero seriously.

As Christian Wolff (just one of this character’s many aliases), Affleck plays a CPA who crunches numbers as efficiently as he crunches bones, and capturing that odd combination is

all about tone. O’Connor has a close friend who is the parent of an autistic child, which makes him unusually sensitive to the film’s trickiest ingredient: Instead of presenting Affleck’s Christian Wolff as some kind of freak, he treats the guy as special, blessed with an ability that makes him almost superhuman. (As if speaking to a junior X-Man, his father says, “You’re different. Sooner or later, difference scares people,” before sending his son into a Silat fighting match with three adults.) By extension, “The Accountant” is a hair’s breadth removed from being a superhero movie, unfolding with the kind of fun, comic-book energy all but absent from “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” earlier this year, while maintaining the requisite degree of gravitas.

A suitable analogy might be the film that remains M. Night Shyamalan’s best, 2000’s all-but-forgotten superhero prologue “Unbreakable.” Like that film, “The Accountant” is built almost entirely

upon exposition as Dubuque juggles no fewer than four separate story threads: He gives us Wolff’s current assignment, which involves “uncooking” the books at a company called Living Robotics whose founder (John Lithgow) uses the company’s benefits to justify the most heinous kind of behavior. At the same time, from the sidelines, Treasury Dept. investigator Ray King (J.K. Simmons) enlists a young analyst, Marybeth Medina (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) to identify the shady figure who’s been managing the finances of arms dealers, mobsters, and the world’s other most-wanted criminals. And then he incorporates two separate flashback tracks via which the audience slowly comes to understand how Wolff got to be the way he is, one revealing his extremely complicated childhood (tough love doesn’t come any tougher than the boot camp Wolff’s dad puts him through) and the other, a life-changing stint in Leavenworth, where a disgraced mob accountant (Jeffrey Tambor) teaches his

autistic young protégé the secrets of money laundering.

Actually, there’s a fifth track woven in for good measure, one involving another equally ruthless assassin, Brax (Jon Bernthal), moving in parallel with Wolff, and seemingly one step ahead of him the whole way. To call this structure complex would be an understatement. Instead, King offers another analogy: “Do you like puzzles?” he asks agent Medina, a woman with her own secrets (secrets that, frankly, aren’t so interesting or relevant, but represent the script’s commitment to creating surprising and multi-faceted characters, even as they spout dialogue that sounds like it ought to be contained in comic-book talk bubbles). “The Accountant” is nothing if not a puzzle — not so much a jigsaw as a three-dimensional brain teaser that gets deeper and stranger with each new revelation.

In the middle of it all is Affleck, an actor whose ultra-low-key demeanor works to the role’s advantage.

Here, instead of being asked to emote, he plays an expressionless math prodigy who can multiply big numbers in his head; does his computing with dry-erase markers, “A Beautiful Mind”-style, on big glass windows (the most cinematographic way to do math); and occasionally shoots people point-blank in the temple without even the slightest change in pulse. This cold-blooded latter tendency really seems to satisfy a certain segment of the audience these days, drawing impressed “ooohs” during an advance screening hosted by Beyond Fest in L.A., and yet it represents a troubling new trend in action movies — one in which lethal efficiency is something to be celebrated. It’s the way Daniel Craig’s 007 does business, disposing of life as if … well, as if life were disposable.

The already-plausibility-straining movie offers Wolff a chance at redemption: Dana Cummings (Anna Kendrick), Living Robotics’ in-house accountant, a chipper finance enthusiast who has no

idea that her discovery will make her a target for elimination. Wolff, who seems entirely incapable of romance, thaws just enough to reorganize his plans in order to protect her.

Kendrick (following this year’s “Mr. Right”) finds herself once again making excuses for a sociopathic would-be boyfriend. She’s not terribly convincing as an accountant, but she’s certainly adorable, and she brings a much-needed dose of humanity to a film in which everyone else could be described as “living robotics.”

Even the score boasts a strangely mathematical dimension (but then, most music does), building ominous, electronic momentum beneath the increasingly tense proceedings, which lead to the sort of “he’s coming for you” showdown that makes movies like “John Wick” so guiltlessly satisfying. O’Connor lends a mysterious, ’70s-movie edge to the proceedings, enlisting DP Seamus McGarvey to shoot on 35mm, which, coupled with filters that bathe everything in bronze and blue tones, provide deep,

inky shadows in which the characters’ secrets seem to hide.

None of it seems all that far removed from world of Batman, at least not the one envisioned by Christopher Nolan, and we can hope that, when Affleck gets around to directing his own chapter of the Dark Knight saga, it will be as well-constructed and focused as this film. In the meantime, there should be enough common DNA here to appease fans: Simmons may as well be this movie’s Commissioner Gordon, while Wolff’s backstory reveals a tortured vigilante who may as well be wearing a cape and costume, but instead feels most comfortable in his wireframe glasses and pocket protector.