In 1984, "The Terminator" became one of the pop-culture touchstones of the decade, but it's hard to remember that when Arnold Schwarzenegger was first tapped to play that glowering cybernetic killer, the casting was a bit of knowing joke, one that spun off Arnold's borderline comic lunkishness as an actor. (It's not a compliment, exactly, to say that you were born to play a cyborg.)
Ben Affleck is a far better actor than Schwarzenegger, but nine years ago, when Affleck was cast as the title character of "The Accountant," the role carried some of that same frisson of meta japery. For Affleck, winning as he can be, has often had a blockish, overly square, slightly inexpressive quality. And it's that aspect of his persona that makes him perfect as Christian Wolff, an autistic savant who works as an accountant for mobsters and terrorists, using his surreal numbers acumen to clean up their fraudulent books. He is also, not so incidentally, a brutally efficient action bruiser.
You could say, in the broadest sense, that "The Accountant" was a "Jason Bourne" thriller with Rain Man at its center. But that wouldn't do justice to the submerged wit of Affleck's performance, and the even better one he gives in "The Accountant 2," which premiered tonight at SXSW. Speaking in a low flat monotone, with facial expressions that range from blank to blanker, he's a lot more plugged-in than Dustin Hoffman's character in "Rain Main," but Christian's personality is limited by the fact that the only way he knows how to communicate is by spouting objective information. That's what he thinks a conversation is. Within that way of being, he's a rather personable stoic brainiac, but it's that naggingly neutral quality - Affleck as emotional android - that shapes Christian's prowess as an action hero. He's empathy impaired; this allows him to inflict pain.
Link:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/entertainment/news/the-accountant-2-review-ben...
