Jon Bernthal and Ben Affleck are estranged brothers who team up to track down mysterious assassins in The Accountant 2. Photo: Supplied.
Acumen and strength, you could say, take centre stage in The Accountant 2, which is the sequel to the 2016 film in which Christian Wolff, an autistic certified public accountant, made his living sanitising fraudulent financial and accounting records.
While the 2025 follow-up is not primarily about traditional accounting tasks, it has a mix of action and crime, with a central plot involving financial illegalities and a human-trafficking ring. Wolff (played again by Ben Affleck, Good Will Hunting, Argo, Gone Girl) is an accountant with a unique skill set. This time around, the focus is more on his investigative work and action sequences.
Affleck, Jon Bernthal, Cynthia Addai-Robinson and J. K. Simmons reprise their roles from the previous film The Accountant, with Daniella Pineda (Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom) joining the cast as Anaïs/Edith Sanchez, an amnesiac assassin and the missing Salvadorean mother. Gavin O’Connor (The Accountant, Miracle, Warrior) resumes his directorial duties.
As the storyline picks up nine years later, the film’s opening is a misnomer as what follows is contrary to expectations. Wolff is drawn back into a dangerous investigation after the murder of his former boss, Treasury director Ray King (Simmons, Juror #2, Whiplash), the former director of FinCEN, who launches the search for a Salvadorean family. It’s King’s cryptic message “find the accountant” (on his arm) that leads US Treasury deputy director Marybeth Medina (Addai-Robinson, The Accountant, Colombiana) to seek Christian’s help.
The stakes are high as the trio find themselves targeted by powerful individuals who are deeply involved in the conspiracy, creating an intense chain of events.
Christian teams up with his estranged brother and professional hitman Braxton Wolff (Bernthal, The Accountant, Origin, Baby Driver). This duo of opposites – Christian has the intelligence and Brax is the muscle – reunites for one mission: to unravel a conspiracy involving corruption and global crime that trades in people and exploits them for profit.
As Wolff starts to connect the dots from King’s wall of evidence, the script begins to show flaws. This film doesn’t build enough momentum for an emotional connection since the central mystery is unengaging as there should have been further characterisation of individuals in lieu of just displaying unscrupulous means where we see themes of manipulation of immigration status for exploitation.
The conspiracy is deadly as the investigation leads them into a world of forced labour, dishonesty and ruthless killers who will stop at nothing to protect their secrets.
Christian and Brax are comrades in arms, their strained relationship and their contrasting skills forming a key part of the plot. Yet, The Accountant 2 somehow misses the success mark as it leans heavily on its predecessor’s male-driven, buddy-style, comedic strong bond and engaging interaction between the main characters.
An anticipated hyper-competence does not meet expectations, thereby forgoing the moral greyness and nuances that made the first film much more appealing.
Getting to the crux is a protracted process as screenwriter Bill Dubuque’s dawdling and disarranged script is a slow burn. While the action sequences are overblown, this superficial follow-up lacks the original’s depth and complexity, making it a standard action movie.
It unpacks layers of human feelings, particularly Christian and Braxton’s search for connection, salvation and family in the aftermath of violence and trauma. They are two-dimensional characters.
There is no love story here since O’Connor emphasised that the sequel focuses on the relationship between Christian and Brax, rather than revisiting the romance element from the first film with Anna Kendrick’s character.
O’Connor says when he and Dubuque started talking about the second movie, “… it was very important that we didn’t want a love story”.
“We wanted a love story with brothers,” he said. “We wanted to do a 48 Hours or Midnight Run kind of buddy picture.”
The plan has always been for “Christian’s quest for love and connection to be consummated” in the third movie.
“I don’t know what that’s going to be yet, but that’s the intention.”
The Accountant 2, directed by Gavin O’Connor, is streaming on Amazon Prime
