"The Accountant" is a film stuck between identities, much like Ben Affleck's titular character. This is the last time I rely on trailers to communicate a film's tone. The pacing is intense, but later slows down massively for little reason, then speeds up again only to slow repeatedly. The content we get is worthwhile insofar as the tense childhood of an autistic boy with a father who refuses to accept his disability.

The acting is believable but the script runs out of breath before we reach any worthwhile character development. And after these hefty slogs through memory lane, we get short bursts of action that simply don't wow me in the choreography department. After such cinematic engagements like "John Wick," the action we do get in this film is underwhelming at best and feels cut down at worst. As if the editing block made cuts where they shouldn't have.

The film, as I mentioned, suffers from an identity crisis. A tug of war, so to speak, between a layered melodrama about an autistic youth struggling to find his footing and an action/thriller about a peculiar man unwinding international criminals exploits with a twist. It's a genuinely interesting mix of ideas but the movie refuses to take advantage of it (most notably the script and overall pacing but the camera work was far from inventive, as well). The direction on display here needed a shot of adrenaline as well seeing as how Affleck was practically stripped of all personality in favor of his character being autistic? Not to mention J.K. Simmons is shamelessly wasted here, sidelined when he could easily have become a central character. As a supporting cast member, they definitely wanted to stick to that definition during filming. It's difficult to bash this movie because of what it attempts to do but it is also difficult to praise because it gets nothing done at the same time. The cast has displayed far more talent in other films but they are systematically underutilized. If this movie was split into two completely different films it would have been better off. As is it stands in the theatrical release "The Accountant" is an underwhelming bore that the trailers made out to be a thought provoking action/thriller but was released a half-baked shadow of everything the movie promises and lays to waste. There really isn't more to say about such a poorly put together film. If only it had picked one of it's strengths and ran with it.

4/10 an empty husk of good ideas gone wrong. Go watch anything else, please.