"The Accountant" Review

Ben Affleck returns to the screen in The Accountant, the latest of director Gavin O'Connor's compelling examinations of brotherhood.

Affleck plays Christain Wolff, a CPA who moonlights by cooking and uncooking the books for some of the world's most high-profile criminals. Christian is called in to an Illinois firm specializing in applied robotics after a whistleblower (Anna Kendrick) finds millions of dollars missing from some annual statements. As fate would have it, the robotics people are up to something shady, and they'll do just about anything to keep it secret. Christian eludes and fights back against both the federal agents and hired guns who are hot on his tail.

Oh, yeah, and one more thing: Christian has a high-functioning form of autism.

My gut reaction to The Accountant is "two thumbs up." The film is as exciting a caper as we've seen this year with some terrific action sequences and a script peppered with a refreshing dose of humor. Granted there are occasional lapses in storytelling logic; some of the subplots get a bit tangled, but overall I had a great time with this movie. Affleck's "accountant" feels like the return of the "everyman" hero. If you ask me, the current blockbuster landscape has needed a corny "everyman" flick badly.

Perhaps more engaging than the set pieces, however, the story explores some of the coping mechanisms and developmental strategies of people with developmental disorders such as autism and Asperger's syndrome. It's great to have an entertaining flick with mainstream appeal that calls attention to some of these issues. I've heard some criticisms from people who are concerned that the film may be too ableist. In truth, the film examines how Christian's character grows in response to, or in spite of, ableism. Christian's father is a hardened military man who forces his boys into specialized combat training out of fear that young Christian may be picked on for being "different." Perhaps that's an inherently "ableist" attitude, but it's part of the father's character. Also, I say "boys" because Christian has a younger brother, Braxton, and whatever the two of them do, they do together. One is never portrayed as superior to the other. The father wants his sons both to learn how to cope with the harsh stimuli of the world around them. Christian is never coddled or made to be "less than" anyone else, and we see how this pans out from early development through his mature coping years.

No doubt there are capable actors out there who have made successful careers for themselves despite living with a developmental disorder. One day hopefully we'll have someone like that in a role like this. However, even with Affleck in the part, I say that some representation is better than none at all.

And, besides, when have we ever been able to say that the coolest Hollywood "superhero" of the year is an autistic accountant?

B+

"Don't Breathe" Review

From the creative team behind 2013's remake of Evil Dead comes the most brutal, most intense, and most original American horror film in at least a decade. In fact, writer/director Fede Alvarez's Don't Breathe will leave you just that - breathless.

The premise of Don't Breathe is something of a reverse-home invasion thriller. We open on three young burglars - Money (Daniel Zovatto), Rocky (Jane Levy) and Alex (Dylan Minnette) - casing the empty house of a wealthy family on holiday. Hungry for a bigger score, the group sets their sights on a seemingly easy target - a blind man (Stephen Lang) living in the last occupied house in a decrepit neighborhood. Word is that the blind man is sitting on a $300,000 legal settlement which is stored in cash somewhere inside the house. However, the thieves underestimate the measure of a man with everything to lose.

The film has so many refreshingly unexpected twists, and they all generally work. Just when you think you know what's coming, something else comes totally out of left field. Oftentimes when writers try to insert this many plot or character twists, they jumble things up too much and ultimately fall flat. It's a feat in and of itself that Alvarez and co-writer Rodo Sayagues pull the rug out from under us this many times, and the film never loses steam. This is a lean, mean picture with little to no extraneous detail to distract from the story at hand.

Acting performances are strong with Levy and Lang shining brightest. Levy is well on her way to becoming one of the next great "scream queens." Although his character arc ultimately hinges on a few far-fetched circumstances, Lang hands in a positively chilling tun as the Blind Man.

The cinematography is also very well done. There's a scene where Alex and Rocky find themselves trapped in total darkness; the Blind Man thus forcing them to "see what he sees." The visuals this scene is executed with are something akin to night vision, but the shot isn't glowing green. The gradient turns, essentially, black & white, which makes the facial expressions of the terrified actors somewhat horrifying themselves.

As cool as the acting and cinematography are, those aren't my favorite things about this movie. As a horror movie fan, it's easy to feel jaded. Once you've experienced the graphic atrocities of Cannibal Holocaust and the disturbing, supernatural dreamscapes of The Shining, it's all sort of downhill from there in a way. There are things that happen in Don't Breathe that made me believe in American horror movies again. Brutal, nasty, unsettling things the likes of which haven't been seen in a mainstream release in years. Words cannot express how delighted I am that this movie is getting a general release in theaters nationwide. Outside of the indie scene, horror has been dominated by sequels and reboots. The genre needs a movie like Don't Breathe now more than ever to haunt the hearts and minds of genre fans everywhere. I think we're going to be discussing, watching and remembering this one for a long, long time. 

A-

"Zootopia" Review

With its 55th animated feature, Walt Disney Animation Studios serves up yet another home run in the form of Zootopia - a lush, colorful feature that may be too dense for kids. Older teens and adults should eat up the film's deep conspiracy plot and its mature, but never dirty, sense of humor. Keen-eyed fans of The Godfather, Breaking Bad, and past Disney animated hits will find plenty to chuckle about.

The story starts with Judy Hopps (Once Upon A Time's Ginnifer Goodwin), a bunny from a small country town with dreams of being a police officer in the big city of Zootopia. After being told to temper her expectations for the real world, Judy leaves the haters behind and heads to the police academy. Her first day on the job in Zootopia leads her to an encounter with a sly fox named Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman). After a rough first day, the city-slick Nick and greenhorn Judy become unlikely partners when Judy takes on a missing persons case in a last-ditch effort to save her career. As they chase down leads all over town, a more sinister plot comes to light.

If anything bad can be said about the film, it's that things fall into place too conveniently on more than one occasion for our heroes. I won't list examples in fear of giving too much away, but leads and hunches are often resolved with little effort from the story or the characters. This diminishes the stakes a bit and undermines some of the most interesting aspects of (especially) Judy's character. It's odd that the bunny who doesn't have a clue suddenly seems to have an answer for everything. When she doesn't, her conveniently paired fox friend does.

It's easy to see past these flaws, however, because of how incredible everything else is. The animation is gorgeous; every animal, building, article of clothing and drop of water is realized with vivid detail. And believe it or not, everything looks even better in 3-D.

The voice acting is also quite strong. Bateman shines as Nick, a perfect match for the actor's smart comedic sensibilities. Goodwin is perpetually engaging as Judy. The two lead an impeccable supporting cast including Idris Elba, Jenny Slate, J.K. Simmons, Octavia Spencer, Tommy Chong and Shakira among others.

Lastly, Disney delivers another ballsy message in the form of a colorful kid's movie. The central conflict of Zootopia stems from deep-seeded prejudice. Predators and prey co-habitate in Zootopia despite their biology, and this creates a fascinating, sometimes complicated, dynamic for both the characters and the world they exist in. It's a message that rings all too truly for the real world today, but the deeper issues at hand for us humans have existed for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.
Until hate and prejudice are erased from the face of the earth, films like Zootopia will continue to timelessly inform as well as entertain.

A-