The Accountant (2016)

I can't believe I haven't watched this since it came out in theaters.  Watching it again, I still really liked it.  I think this and Gone Girl are the best movies Ben Affleck has ever done.  This time around, I was also able to appreciate J.K. Simmons more.

When I was a kid, the autism spectrum wasn't as widely known as it is today.  You had to be an extreme case to get a diagnosis.  If it were more like today back then, my brother and I would probably have fallen somewhere on the high-functioning end.  So this film has an extra level for me as someone who grew up "weird" with a brother who struggled to communicate.  Originally posted 30 Oct 16.    I liked this more than I thought I would.  I don't know why, but I've just never warmed to Ben Affleck.  He does good work.  I just can't bring myself to like him.  This one I'd actually buy, though.

An autistic boy grows up to be an accountant (Ben Affleck) for some extremely dangerous people.  In order to maintain his cover, he also takes regular jobs for large companies who need help when their revenue streams are too complicated for anyone else to untangle.  The job at Living Robotics seems to be just that but when he starts to get closer to where the missing money has gone, people are sent to kill him and the company accountant (Anna Kendrick) who originally discovered the discrepancy.  Meanwhile, a retiring Treasury chief (J.K. Simmons) puts his most promising recruit (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) on the accountant's trail to discover once and for all who he really is.

It seems like an action movie and it mostly is but it's also a shockingly sweet movie about family and the importance of connecting.  It does rely very heavily on the "autism = superpowers" trope, like if you mixed Rain Man with James Bond, but I was able to put that aside.  It's definitely worth a look if you were on the fence.