The Accountant 2 brings back Ben Affleck’s savant in mathematics and maiming Christian Wolff nearly a decade after the original film: this time pairing him more directly with his previously estranged brother Braxton, played by Jon Bernthal. The sequel stumbles in its attempt to deliver a compelling thriller. However, it finds surprising strength in its buddy-comedy aspect which it wastes as it relies too much on an overly formulaic approach. It also introduces too many side characters and a weird kid genius sub-plot that while interesting, doesn’t feel like it fits in with the rest of the film.
The best parts of the movie evoke the odd-couple charm of classic ’80s action duos. Affleck and Bernthal have genuinely great chemistry, Affleck the stoic, number-crunching genius; Bernthal the volatile bruiser with a soft spot for his brother. Their dynamic is prickly, funny, and often heartfelt in a way that grounds the story while it take a breath between action sequences. One rooftop scene in particular crackles with sibling tension and affection and lets the two actors bounce off each other with ease. Affleck and Bernthal really sell the troubled but loving plus combative and competitive nature of their relationship. If the film had concentrated more on the brothers as brothers it might’ve been something special.
Unfortunately, The Accountant 2 spends far too much time trying to be a convoluted conspiracy thriller. The plot involves missing persons, shady private intelligence work, and a clunky subplot about trafficked immigrants that’s exploitative. While there are a few solid action sequences, they’re predominantly imitative, and the final showdown feels especially flat.
The kid genius aspect of the story remains the most compelling outside of the brotherly aspect, and while we do get a great performance from Alison Robertson who returns to her role as Justine, a nonverbal autist who leads the junior savants by talking through a text to speech program on her computer. Yet the film only really starts to add depth in the last half to Justine and regrettably it’s too little too late. Moving Justine’s arc to the forefront could have given the movie some needed kick.
Bill Dubuque’s script introduces a potentially interesting world, especially with the addition of Christian’s team of neurodivergent tech whizzes, but it all feels undercooked and tonally uneven. Director Gavin O’Connor seems torn between making a gritty crime story and a quirky character-driven buddy film, and the result is a movie that never quite figures out what it wants to be and ends up being satisfactorily neither.
Regardless of the obvious issues with tone, there’s enough here to keep an audience mildly invested via the Affleck-Bernthal dynamic. Outside of that, The Accountant 2 is a passable, but ultimately forgettable, sequel. It won’t satiate a craving for a tight and clever thriller, but it might work for an audience as a rough-edged sibling story with guns and problem solving evidence boards plastered on walls.
