The Accountant is a 2016 American action thriller film[1][3] written by Bill Dubuque, directed by Gavin O'Connor, and starring Ben Affleck, Anna Kendrick, J. K. Simmons, Jon Bernthal, Cynthia Addai-Robinson, Jeffrey Tambor, and John Lithgow.
It received praise for Affleck's performance and the action sequences featuring pencak silat, an Indonesian martial art, but it was also criticized for its portrayal of autism.
[4][5][6][7][8] A sequel to the film, with most of the cast and creative team returning and with Affleck and Matt Damon among the producers, is set to be released on April 25, 2025, by Amazon MGM Studios.
Christian is hired to audit the firm Living Robotics after the company's CEO, Lamar Blackburn, and his sister Rita learn of accounting irregularities.
Meanwhile, Treasury Director Ray King meets with data analyst Marybeth Medina, who has a criminal record as a juvenile but failed to disclose this on her employment application.
He warns her she faces prison if he chooses to reveal the information and assigns her the task of finding Christian's real identity before King retires in a few months.
He arrives at her apartment in time to stop another team from killing her, then takes her to his storage unit, which contains an Airstream recreational vehicle filled with artwork and valuables that he has accepted as payment.
The brothers fight and then reconcile, and when afterwards Lamar appears and tries to justify his actions, Christian kills him and, before leaving, makes arrangements to meet up with Braxton in a week's time.
Dana receives a framed copy of Dogs Playing Poker but discovers an original Jackson Pollock painting hidden underneath it.
The website's critical consensus reads: "The Accountant writes off a committed performance from Ben Affleck, leaving viewers with a scattershot action thriller beset by an array of ill-advised deductions.
[32] Vince Mancini of Uproxx gave the film a positive review, writing, "It's transparent in its attempt both to pimp a future franchise and give autistic kids their own superhero.
"[37] Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 3.5 out of 4 stars, saying: "Madness abounds in The Accountant, an intense, intricate, darkly amusing, and action-infused thriller that doesn't always add up, but who cares, it's BIG FUN.
"[38] Richard Brody of The New Yorker panned the film, stating: "This thrill-free thriller...piles up plotlines like an overbuilt house of cards that comes crashing down at the first well-earned guffaw of ridicule.
[41] Laurie Stephen, director of clinical services in Altadena, California, said "it's concerning that a movie features a character with autism who has guns and engages in this kind of aggression/violence".
[46][47] By January 2024, the film had officially entered pre-production with principal photography scheduled to commence in March of the same year, with Seamus McGarvey set to return as cinematographer.
[48] In March 2024, Affleck, Bernthal, Simmons and Addai-Robinson were announced to be reprising their roles for the sequel, with Amazon MGM Studios acquiring the sequel's rights from Warner Bros. (who will serve as the international distributor through an existing deal with the studio) and Affleck also serving as a producer with Matt Damon under their Artists Equity banner alongside the original film's producers.