THE ACCOUNTANT 2 : Tuesday 6th May 2025

I saw the MA15+ Rated 'THE ACCOUNTANT 2' this week at my local multiplex cinema. This American action thriller film is Directed by Gavin O'Connor who made his feature film making debut with 'Comfortably Numb' in 1995 and went on to Direct the likes of 'Miracle' in 2004, 'Pride and Glory' in 2008, 'Warrior' in 2011, 'Jane Got a Gun' in 2015, 'The Accountant' in 2016 and 'The Way Back' in 2020. This film is a sequel to O'Connor's 2016 film 'The Accountant' and saw its Premiere screening at SXSW in early-March this year and was released Stateside and here in Australia on 24th April, having garnered generally favourable critical reviews, and has so far recouped US$69M from its US$80M production budget. A third film is apparently in development.

The film opens up with now retired and former FinCEN (Financial Crimes Enforcement Network) Director Raymond King (J.K. Simmons) meeting up with a mystery assassin Anais (Daniella Pineda) in some dive bar. He offers her only a seven year old photograph of a Salvadorean family and their young son that he wants her to track down for him. Anais doesn’t respond to the offer but warns King he’s been followed by a small group of heavies. King is assassinated in the ensuing gunfight while escaping the bar while Anais walks away calmly into the night having dispensed with several of the gun wielding goons. King’s protege and current Deputy Director of FinCEN, Marybeth Medina (Cynthia Addai-Robinson), soon afterwards identifies his body and sees 'find the accountant' written on his arm and decides to take up the case.

Medina, despite being mistrustful of Christian Wolff’s (Ben Affleck, who also Co-Produces here) illegal activities acting as an Accountant to various underworld clients dotted around the world, asks him for help finding the family in the photo. Wolff agrees to help. Later that night while Medina is sleeping, Wolff organises a collage of information which shows that the family in the photo fled from El Salvador to Los Angeles, encountering various challenges en route. Cobb (Grant Harvey), the man tasked with killing Anais and King, informs his supervisor Burke (Robert Morgan) who tells him to continue pursuing Anais for fear that she realises what Burke did to her, several years earlier.

Christian calls his estranged brother Braxton (Jon Bernthal), with whom he has not made contact for eight years. He calls Brax while he is sat at a large dining table eating ice cream straight out of the tub and having a one sided conversation with a very compliant yet also very afraid young woman. After Brax cuts short the call from Christian, and on the second attempt to connect Christian says that he needs Brax's help and to be in Los Angeles in 24 hours. As Brax gets up to leave, he is seen walking over several dead bodies to get to the lift, clearly still a deadly assassin for hire, and still with the ice cream tub in hand. 24 hours later and Brax arrives in Los Angeles to be greeted by Christian in the grounds of a very down market apartment he has rented, and in an attempt to clear the air on their period of estrangement. 

Justine (Allison Robertson), still residing at the New Hampshire compound where she met Christian, works with a group of autistic children to hack into all manner of differing technologies to help Christian. Their group is able to source a photo of Anais but are unable to identify her. Uncomfortable with their illegal methods, Medina severs her ties from Christian and Brax. She visits a hospital mentioned in one of King’s reports, where she learns that Anais is actually the mother from the photo. Anais was involved in a near fatal car accident and after spending months in hospital recovering and undergoing numerous treatments and losing her memories, she developed intense combat skills before escaping. Batu (Andrew Howard), a contractor for hitmen, sets a contract for Medina which Braxton rejects. Justine warns Christian who rides over at breakneck speed on his motorcycle and he arrives after Anais and Medina have fought in close quarter combat, with Anais gaining the upper hand and stabbing Medina in the stomach with a kitchen knife. Anais flees the scene while Christian tends to Medina's wounds, but not before she has observed the photo still on the wall of her husband (subsequently shot at point blank range by Burke and buried in a mass grave) and young son (also presumed to be dead). 

Braxton and Christian deduce that Anais’ still living, autistic son Alberto (Yael Ocasio) is being held captive at a prison camp in Juarez with other children of trafficking victims, all of whom have been separated from their families. Burke orders Cobb to fly down to Juarez and kill all the children and bury them in the desert. Christian and Brax lay siege to the compound and are able to save Alberto and the rest of the children after killing Cobb and his small army of guards. Justine blackmails Batu into cancelling his contract on Medina. Anais, having regained some of her memories, realises Burke is the person who imprisoned her son and killed her husband in Juarez. She finds Burke in hiding in Costa Rica and kills him. Justine and the autistic children prepare to welcome Alberto to their facility in New Hampshire, and Braxton and Christian discuss taking a brotherly hiking trip together.

Gavin O'Connor is back Directing 'The Accountant 2' and while it doesn't have the same depth of the first more straight laced instalment, Affleck and Bernthal clearly exude an on-screen chemistry while throwing humorous barbs at each other and getting into laughable situations (speed dating bingo and line dancing for example), that serve to lighten the load from the all guns blazing human trafficking main plot. The performances of the remaining cast of characters are all more than serviceable, the action set pieces are well staged, the pacing is solid, but the main plot is a little meh!, but what carries the film through is the buddy relationship and the rapport between the two main characters. You could do worse at the cinema this week, and its certainly worth the price of your movie ticket.

'The Accountant 2' merits four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-