[Blu-Ray Review] ‘The Accountant’: Now Available On 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, DVD & Digital HD From Warner Bros

The Accountant [Blu-Ray]

Director: Gavin O’Connor

Cast: Ben Affleck, Anna Kendrick, J.K. Simmons

Release Date: January 10, 2017

A Review By: Kevin Lovell

Film Rating: 7/10
Disc Rating: 7.5/10

Synopsis:

Christian Wolff (Affleck) is a math savant with more affinity for numbers than people. Behind the cover of a small-town CPA office, he works as a freelance accountant for some of the world’s most dangerous criminal organizations. With the Treasury Department’s Crime Enforcement Division, run by Ray King (J.K. Simmons), starting to close in, Christian takes on a legitimate client: a state-of-the-art robotics company where an accounting clerk (Anna Kendrick) has discovered a discrepancy involving millions of dollars. But as Christian un-cooks the books and gets closer to the truth, it is the body count that starts to rise.

‘The Accountant’ introduces us to the world of a brilliant math savant named Christian Wolff (Affleck), a genius accountant capable of finding the most minute discrepancies and a trained killer known for accepting high paying jobs in many of the most dangerous places around the world; able to disappear without a trace at a moment’s notice. After accepting a new job, Christian is abruptly forced to stop his work before completing, and as individuals involved within the company begin showing up dead Christian must make the difficult choice whether to disappear as he was trained to do, or stay behind against his better judgment in order to try and protect a young employee (Kendrick) at the company who he has taken a mysterious liking to and who may also be the next target. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to Christian, both a team of government officials and a deadly assassin nearly as capable as himself remain only steps behind as an inevitable battle between unknown adversaries looms.

Directed by Gavin O’Connor (Warrior, Pride and Glory) from a screenplay written by Bill Dubuque (The Judge), O’Connor does a great job at the helm of ‘The Accountant’ delivering a tense and capable dramatic thriller. The film also owes a large share of the credit to the talented folks who make up the cast including Ben Affleck (Argo), Anna Kendrick (Pitch Perfect), J.K. Simmons (Patriots Day), Jon Bernthal (TV’s Daredevil), John Lithgow (Interstellar), Jeffrey Tambor (TV’s Transparent), Cynthia Addai-Robinson (TV’s Arrow), and more, all delivering highly capable performances in each of their respective roles and as a result contributing to the movie working as well as it does.

‘The Accountant’ is a well constructed and shot thriller that takes some real life issues to heart, and manages to take viewers on an entertaining and occasionally action packed and thrilling ride that should have no trouble holding your attention throughout the entirety of its course. Fortunately never overdoing the action sequences and allowing the story and character development to suffer as a result, one element which helps tremendously to give the movie some sense of humanity amongst the violence. It offers plenty of brutal action, tense fight sequences, and a largely interesting storyline along with a number of gorgeous shots that are always guided along quite capably by director Gavin O’Connor and further complimented by highly competent performances from a number of talented actors including Ben Affleck, Anna Kendrick, and many more. While engulfing, well acted and smoothly guided, it still isn’t a perfect film and does suffer from a few faults, such as the painfully predictable reveals which occasionally come off as downright silly as a result of their blatant obviousness. Yet, even with its faults ‘The Accountant’ still comes together as a fairly solid film overall and should be well worth a watch for anyone who is a fan of Affleck, Kendrick, or any other key cast members, along with anyone who appreciates a tense and enjoyable thriller.

Overall, ‘The Accountant’ is a fun and fairly well done dramatic thriller that albeit not perfect, still manages to provide a consistently entertaining ride with plenty of bloody and hard hitting action throughout, in addition to a storyline that actually allows its characters to expand and not merely be pushed aside by a barrage of senseless violence. Directed with care by Gavin O’Connor and further boosted by a number of talented folks comprising a solid overall cast, I would definitely recommend giving ‘The Accountant’ a shot if you’re a fan of the director, cast, or simply enjoy a capable and fun thriller. It should be easily worth the cost of a rental for those who might be understandably hesitant to drop the cash on a blind purchase.

VIDEO:

The Blu-ray release of ‘The Accountant’ features a full 1080p High Definition presentation utilizing the film’s original 2.40:1 Cinemascope Aspect Ratio. The video presentation looks fantastic as a whole and delivers a sharp and detailed presentation from start to finish with no notable faults to be found at any point within. It holds up impressively at all times, even during the fast paced and/or darkly lit sequences; never allowing anything occurring on screen to become negatively affected or rendered indiscernible. Overall, this is a solid high definition video presentation from Warner Bros. that should easily satisfy the masses.

AUDIO:

The Blu-ray release features a lossless 7.1 channel DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack. This lossless multichannel soundtrack provides a crisp, clean and quite aggressive audio presentation throughout. It frequently utilizes all seven available channels in order to immerse the viewer within the score, as well as the action; sending plenty of debris, crowd chatter, bullets and more whipping throughout the various speakers in many sequences, and never resulting in any dialogue which may be occurring simultaneously to become distorted or rendered inaudible. Overall, this is a fantastic 7.1 channel DTS-HD MA soundtrack that perfectly complements the action and tension.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

The Blu-ray release of ‘The Accountant’ includes a few enjoyable extras in the way of some behind the scenes Featurettes that take you deeper into bringing the film to life and include behind the scenes footage, interviews/comments with the cast and crew, plus more. The included Featurettes are: ‘Inside the Man’ (running approximately 11 minutes in length), ‘Behavioral Science’ (running approximately 8 minutes), and ‘The Accountant In Action’ (approximately 7 minutes).