Accountant 2, The (United States, 2025)

Expectations can be an unfortunate thing. Over the years, my fondness for Ben Affleck’s 2016 thriller, The Accountant, has not waned so, when I learned that the character was returning for another outing after a nine-year gap, I was hopeful. Alas, even the calculated reunion of the original band – director Gavin O’Connor, screenwriter Bill Dubuque, and actors Affleck, Jon Bernthal, Cynthia Addai-Robinson, and J.K. Simmons – isn’t enough to craft a worthy follow-up. The problem is evident from the early-going. The movie works when focused on character interaction and buddy-movie tropes, but the action elements are perfunctory at best and boring at worst. Bill Dubuque’s script is never able to balance out the ledger.

The movie gets off to a rousing start, featuring a clandestine nightclub encounter between retired FinCEN chief-turned-P.I. Raymond King (J.K. Simmons) and assassin Anais (Daniella Pineda). He has something to tell her but, beyond giving her a photograph, he doesn’t get very far. A lot of men with guns are coming for him (or her, or both of them). There’s a fight, a chase, and a death, and soon King’s former assistant, Treasury Agent Marybeth Medina (Addai-Robinson), is on the job. The one clue she has takes her into the orbit of someone she found distasteful when she researched him back in The Accountant: Christian Wolff, The Accountant. Their reluctant partnership is oil-and-water but Christian’s unorthodox methods (which include torture) achieve results. Things get to be too much for Agent Medina, however, when Christian brings his “little” brother, Braxton (Jon Bernthal), into the mix. Together and apart, the siblings and Marybeth unravel the truth about Anais and her connection to the mysterious photograph. If only the solution proved to be as interesting as the mystery.

The thriller aspects of The Accountant 2 lack depth and cohesion. The villains are poorly drawn and the through-line of the narrative doesn’t have the necessary heft (even a popcorn flick requires sufficient emotional stakes to get the viewer to care). The ending is scattershot and anticlimactic, with some really dumb elements involving a school bus. Ultimately, there’s a “Is that all there is?” vibe to the entire endeavor. The story doesn’t justify a two-hour movie.

The hangout stuff almost makes it worthwhile, however. The chemistry between Affleck’s autistic savant and Bernthal’s brawny Braxton is top-notch and there are some great standalone scenes between the two that make one forget how confused the rest of the film is. In one, the two brothers kick back atop Christian’s mobile home and Braxton asks some pointed questions about their relationship. In another, the two brothers visit a country-western joint with entertaining results.

Christian remains a fascinating character. There’s a sense that exploring his personality is of greater interest to the filmmakers (and Affleck) than telling a compelling story. The absence of Anna Kendrick (or a replacement) creates a void. Aside from an amusing early scene in which Christian attends a speed-dating event and a brief flirtation on the dance floor of the country-western bar, sex and romance are ignored. Ironically, in attempting to flesh-out Christian, The Accountant 2 makes him more one-dimensional.

When it arrived in theaters nearly a decade ago, I called The Accountant a “superhero movie.” This time around, it feels more like one of the Rambo-type sequels in which the “good guys” go up against impossible odds and use big guns and bigger cojones to bulldoze their way through an army of “bad guys.” As well-orchestrated as the opening sequence is, the action is mostly underwhelming – devoid of tension and often surprisingly poorly presented. The rushed ending gives the movie an incomplete feel.

Would I like to see another Accountant movie? Only if there’s a script worthy of the character, because that’s the problem with this one. When you have someone as inherently interesting as Christian, he needs to have an arc that makes use of his talents in a way that engages the audience. That happened in The Accountant but this is a huge step backward. The gains fail to outweigh the losses.

Accountant 2, The (United States, 2025)