The Accountant 2 Review

2016's "The Accountant" escaped me when it was theatrically released, and though I ended up watching it last year on streaming, I had the same reaction as when watching its sequel, politely called "The Accountant 2:" it's an efficiently made little action thriller staring Ben Affleck that left me feeling a bit icky its characterization. He plays an autistic accountant who is as skilled at evading authorities as he is breaking necks, and while the idea of Affleck, who is not autistic, portray someone with autism is not itself necessarily problematic, it actually kinda is, especially in a movie like this.

It's a topic for serious cinema, and all it says about the disorder here is that it makes you a genius with everything from numbers to fighting but really, really bad at talking to people. I might not be autistic myself, but I know a stereotype when I see one.

This time, returning screenwriter Bill Dubuque fills the film with even more unsavory ideas, showing illegal immigrants as either taking US-citizen jobs or becoming prostitutes, else bad people will hold their children for ransom. What happens when the family doesn't pay? The answer is always death, a sick and twisted exploitation of real-world issues for the sake of portraying an autistic assassin accountant as a light and breezy action hero. I do appreciate also returning Gavin O'Connor's direction, who focuses away from actually showing much violence with the misogyny or child harm, but that's still what's driving this from the opening to ending credits.

I suppose I should get to the plot, which is labyrinthine for the sake of giving its "savant" savior a reason for even being involved: Ray King (J.K. Simmons in a brief cameo) meets with the mysterious Anaïs (Daniella Pineda), only to be killed on the streets following a bathroom brawl, the words "find the accountant" written on his arm. In case you've never read "The Laws of Action Movies," it states that having a fight take place in a lavatory can't be all that bad. But I digress.

What does the cryptic scribbling mean? Marybeth (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) knows, having worked with Ray in the first film trying to locate the enigmatic actuary. His name is Chris Wolff, of course played Affleck, returning with many of the same tics as before, from blowing on his fingers before eating to having just one fork, spoon, etc., He also plays briefly with a Lightsaber, because he's a nerd, because, you know, stereotypes.

Marybeth locates and persuades Wolff to help her find out who killed King, why, and maybe even figure out who the people in a random photo puzzlingly found in-between the cushions of the seat he sat at moments before his demise. And Wolff turns to his estranged younger brother Braxton (Jon Bernthal) for help. Braxton is not autistic, and their bond is strained due their upbringing, their jobs, his stubbornness and Wolff's condition. The two are almost always bickering, drinking, arguing, teasing or killing, sometimes several at the same time, and their reunion is almost a sweet one. Except this isn't a study or investigation of the significance of its situation, simply window-dressing for slick, commercial entertainment.

You may have noticed that Dana, played wonderfully by the always-wonderful Anna Kendrick, is not around this time. Their platonic flirtation was so genuine and enjoyable in part 1, so it's a shame that they priortized the wrong relationship for the sequel.

The actual action is quite exciting, filmed so you can usually tell who's punching or firing at who, that is until you discover its rhythm. That is to say Wolff lives like a superhero in a non-superhero world, able to do pretty much anything with his fists or gun without so much as a scratch. It demands a scale of suspension of disbelief that might have worked had his character not been a cliche; I halfway anticipated him to quip "I'm Batman," but alas, that opportunity goes unfulfilled. Maybe in the threequel.

Until Dawn Review

A movie adaptation of a video game, itself starring Hollywood actors, with gameplay like its own an interactive movie, "Until Dawn" is a strange one. It doesn't follow the game's plot, characters (save one) or really even its setting, instead taking the overall feel, like a small group of young adults in an isolated location terrorized by wendigos and a masked assailant. Gory deaths are also here, in all their R-rated glory, as well as the odd piece of cringy dialogue and that one annoying guy who you just can't wait to see get his comeuppance. Yup, it's a slasher film alright.

Only it's a bit deeper than that, much like the game itself: unique here though is that our cast of young actors are stuck in a time loop, reliving each night and being sliced, diced, blown-up, and more, repeatedly unless they can "survive the night." Or so explains a random witch, who momentarily turns main protagonist Clover (Ella Rubin) into a killer herself. Until she's hit by an SUV, that is, but boy am I getting ahead of myself.

See, Clover's sister Mel (Maia Mitchell) mysteriously disappeared a year ago, on her way to New York, just weeks after their mother dies off screen. Her friends stage a little getaway, in an attempt at getting closure, and the group finds themselves in Glore Valley, smack-dab in the middle of Nowhere, USA. On a rainy road, the only house they find is cryptically dry, the small area curiously surrounded by stormy clouds. Inside, the place looks abandoned, covered in dust, bone-dry pipes and electricity that only works when the plot calls for it. But once Nina (Odessa A'zion) signs the "guest book," night begins falls and that strange hourglass turns, sand slowly pouring and oh man, that's when things go off-rails and get a bit weird.

"Until Dawn" doesn't really make a whole lotta sense, introducing ideas like the mutations, mining towns, psychiatric wards, psychics, monsters taller than trees and emotional trauma, only for it to be another excuse to show a lot of blood and guts. Characters use their phones (which naturally don't have any reception) to record one night, die, only to conveniently forget they ever did until the "last night" they have; bruises and scratches carry over between "tries" but they never really seem to learn how to handle everything that's trying to mutilate them. Not that the flick plays fair: do you dare drink the water from the bathroom sink in a place like this? In a movie like this? I think I'd rather use one of my "lives" dying of dehydration.

It's never exactly clear why all of this is happening either; even when a reason is implied by someone, who's name and actor I won't spoil (though any quick interwebs search should show you), it never explains how they too can exist in this world; are they also attacked? Does their night repeat as well? Or perhaps they themselves just a pawn in some greater game? I honestly have no idea, and left the theater wondering why they even bothered trying to come up with an answer.

One thing the filmmakers do a bit differently is not have the same night endlessly repeat; that cloaked villain from the prior attempt doesn't appear on the next. And this allows the script, credited to Gary Dauberman and Blair Butler, to get in a cute line about how this "isn't like in those movies." Finally, characters in a horror movie that aren't your usual stereotypical idiots.

Only the kind of are: I counted twice where someone tripped when being chased, groups splitting up several times instead of all staying together, things even an idiot like me knows not to do in a film like this. Of course, I did pay to go see it, so jokes on me I guess.

G20 Review

The most recent US presidential election casts a gloomy shadow over "G20," an action thriller debuting on Amazon Prime about Viola Davis as the American president combating a terrorist attack led by Homelander himself, Antony Starr. We don't get political here, but a film like this in today's climate makes that impossible- for half of the United States population, it's an ugly reminder of what could have been; let's keep our opinions to ourselves about the other half.

Davis plays Danielle Sutton, the president and Iraq veteran who we first meet disciplining her daughter (Caila Marsai Martin) for sneaking out of the White House to go underage drinking. It goes viral, which is a real problem since she'll be attending the titular G20 summit, where she'll be trying to gain support of an act designed to give farmers access to some form of digital currency. The press, of course, want to instead grill her on the supposed lack of control she has on her children versus, you know, actual presidential activities. Ah, American politics- gotta love 'em.

But at the summit, a man named Rutledge (Starr) uses his connections at a contract company who'll be blustering security for the event, to weasel his way in. A few internet blackouts, door lock changes, and boom, twenty world leaders all trapped in a single location, guns to their heads. Only during the initial attack, the president and her secret service agent Manny (Ramón Rodríguez), along with a few others, manage to escape down a laundry chute. This really sets off Rutledge, who plans to record the hostages reading a list of words so that they can generate deepfakes, spewing nonsense about the economy to cripple it. Why the captives don't read it with a heavy accent or something, to help show that it's not real, is beyond the logic of the script and its four credited screenwriters.

So yeah, it's another "Die Hard" clone, and you know, it's almost refreshing to see a big(ish)-budget one of these, but I do wish we didn't need to run the story through all the cliches at the script-factory: hero's loved-one captured? Numerous double-agents? Talky villain? False ending? Check, check, check and, *checks notes*, ah yes, check.

At least the action is convincing, thanks to the lean and effective direction by Patricia Riggen. I counted only two moments of obvious CGI, and one was a brief establishing shot of the Air Force One. I'd say it was a cute wink at the genre, but that would be to suggest this film had any real wit to it.

As someone who enjoys watching an aging Charles Bronson or Liam Neeson take down dudes half their age, Viola Davis is as convincing as any 59 year old could be. But the film goes out of its way to put her in situations that try and frame unbelievable actions as believably as possible. She seldom needs to fight more than one baddie on her own, and they always seem to happen where she can grab a frying pan, jammed gun, you name it. But even then, the movie can't commit to this notion: early on we see that Sutton has a bum knee, but it never comes up in the many fights she wins; I kept waiting for an enemy to exploit this, like John McClane and his lack of shoes, but it never happens.

"G20" is a B-movie with an A-cast, and Viola has the screen-presence and conviction to have a second-life as an action star. I just wish a star of her caliber had gotten offered a really good script, filled with originality instead of familiarity.