When a king dies, his unresolved plans are left for others to finish.
And when retired Treasury Director Ray King is suddenly assassinated, that job goes to the new director, Marybeth Medina. His death comes as a shock, and she’s left with little to go on—just a jumbled wall full of seemingly unrelated pictures and files. But just before he died, he scrawled a frantic message on his arm.
Find the accountant.
It’s a cryptic instruction, but Ray’s left behind enough clues to point Marybeth in the right direction. And it’s not long before said accountant, Christian Wolff, finds her.
It’s not her first time dealing with Christian, the criminal number savant known for working the balances of corporations and drug cartels alike. And despite how much she hates admitting it, Marybeth knows she’ll need his help to solve Ray’s unfinished case.
But there’s a reason Ray couldn’t solve his investigation. And that someone won’t take kindly to his successor picking the case back up.
As we noted in our review of the first film in this franchise, Christian isn’t exactly a “good guy.” He’s more in the realm of “muscle (and human calculator) for hire,” since his clients can jump between corporation and warlord on a whim. However, he does risk his life to save children from being murdered, and he continues to support a charity with the money he earns. And his brother, Braxton, assists him in these ventures, too.
Speaking of Braxton, the two brothers slowly rebuild their strained relationship throughout the film. Despite their differences, they learn how to connect with each other again.
Someone tells a speed dating group, “Godspeed,” but then quickly clarifies that his blessing was “non-denominational.” A man prays before his meal.
Braxton hires a trio of prostitutes to obtain some information. They’re dressed in short skirts and shirts that expose cleavage. A woman’s dress exposes the side of her breast. Braxton talks on the phone dressed in only tight underwear for a long time, and a woman dances in revealing shorts. A man showers, though nothing critical is seen, and later walks around in a towel.
Christian hijacks a speed dating event to get the most matches—though he struggles to interest any of the women. Someone describes a scene like “something out of one of those ‘let’s catch us a pervert’ shows.”
One plotline here includes a gang of criminals hoping to load a group of young children into a mass grave to kill them (they’re stopped before this can occur). We hear discussions about human trafficking, and we meet some women who have been forced into prostitution by powerful men. It’s said that these men also abuse the women, too. A woman narrowly escapes from a man who has pinned her to the ground, apparently planning to sexually assault her.
Over the course of the film, dozens upon dozens of people, civilian and criminal alike, suddenly discover what’s waiting for them in the afterlife. They’re dispatched primarily via a bullet or two and a burst of blood. Some are executed. But others require a bit more violence to take down: They’re beaten, stabbed and strangled to death. One person has his neck broken when Braxton stomps on the man’s head.
We also see pictures of some grisly murder scenes. A man gets struck and killed by a car. We see a pit filled with bodies. We see a photo of a man with a now-dead rat shoved deeply into his mouth, killed when it was forced into his mouth alive to torture him.
Others don’t die but do suffer grievous injuries: a woman, flung from her car in an accident, requires extensive surgery to save her. Another woman gets kicked and stabbed. Christian tortures a man for information by dislocating his shoulder. One sorry sap gets stabbed with a pen (through his pants) to the genitals. Someone advocates cutting out a man’s eye and threatening to take the second one as a negotiation tactic. A character gets kidnapped.
We hear about 55 f-words, including a handful paired with “mother.” We hear the s-word eight times. Other crudities include: “a–,” “b–ch,” “d–n,” “p-ss” and “douchebag.” We hear a crude slang term for the female anatomy. God’s name is used in vain about 10 times, including seven instances in which it is paired with “d–n.” Jesus’ name is likewise used in vain three times. We see a crude hand gesture.
There’s a reference to drug cartels and drug smuggling. People drink beer and wine. The song “Copperhead Road,” which is about bootlegging moonshine and growing marijuana, plays during a line dance. People smoke cigarettes. Two people resolve to get drunk, and we meet an inebriated man.
Christian’s extensive network of information is managed by a group of neurodivergent children with savant syndrome. They use their skills to hack into government and private files to obtain data necessary for Christian’s work.
“Is there anything better in this world than punching a [explicit] who had it coming?” asks Braxton, reminiscing merrily about sending three men flying through a bar’s window.
The answer you’d take away from The Accountant series is a definitive no.
And, quite honestly, it’d be really easy for me to just copy and paste our conclusion for the first film here. Its sequel is “violent popcorn fare,” whose “only message is, ‘Sit down and watch Ben Affleck shoot people for a while.’” But whereas the first movie had him going at it alone, this time, he’s got his brother, the hitman Braxton.
It’s a bit ironic, then, that the best parts of the movie are when Christian and Braxton take their fingers off the trigger. Jon Bernthal’s brotherly characters plays a much bigger role in this sequel than he did in the first, and the duo’s relationship makes for some of the best—if overly crude—moments of the story.
But those moments don’t last long, especially when unfired bullets have yet to be shot. And still more grim moments await, including some extremely dark ones involving human trafficking and an attempt to slaughter a group of young children.
Ultimately, The Accountant 2 showcases a man far more likely to crunch a body than a number. And those issues likely mean this action thriller won’t turn a profit in your household.
Kennedy Unthank studied journalism at the University of Missouri. He knew he wanted to write for a living when he won a contest for “best fantasy story” while in the 4th grade. What he didn’t know at the time, however, was that he was the only person to submit a story. Regardless, the seed was planted. Kennedy collects and plays board games in his free time, and he loves to talk about biblical apologetics. He thinks the ending of Lost “wasn’t that bad.”
