Ben Affleck's 'The Accountant' adds up despite convoluted plot

"Do you like puzzles?" You'd better if you plan to see The Accountant, an oddly-structured new action-thriller starring Ben Affleck as Christian Wolff, a CPA with high-functioning autism who happens to crunch skulls as well as he crunches numbers. Imagine Batman if he wore glasses and a pocket protector instead of a cape and cowl -- but still kept the utility belt full of deadly weapons.

As a boy growing up in New Hampshire in 1989, young Chris is diagnosed on the autism spectrum, yet he's clearly gifted. He can solve a puzzle that's upside-down because the shapes mean more to him than the image on the front of the pieces, though Chris' violent outbursts scare his mother enough to make her run out on her family.

Chris' father, a hardcore military man, only sees one way to raise him and his brother -- as warriors in Jakarta, Indonesia, where they become trained in the martial art of pentjak silat (as seen in The Raid). Who better than Warrior filmmaker Gavin O'Connor to direct a movie about two very different brothers whose strict father pushes them to fight and teaches them that family comes first?

When we first meet grown-up Christian (one of his many aliases borrowed from real mathematicians), he's a soft-spoken, fabric-sensitive, thermos-carrying, incongruity-loving, finger-blowing accountant helping people find tax loopholes in Illinois, where he does his best to blend in despite the fact that between his strapping physique and brusque interpersonal demeanor, he clearly stands out.

Each day, Christian comes home and engages in self-stimulation. Most people might interpret that as code for "masturbation," but that's not the case with Christian, who prefers to crank heavy metal and turn on a strobe light while he rubs a wooden bar over his shins. His other hobbies include shooting cantaloupes with a high-powered rifle, repetitive chanting of old nursery rhymes during times of stress (common in those with neurodevelopmental disorders), and collecting fine art, comic books, international passports and foreign currencies within the confines of an Airstream trailer hidden in a storage locker that functions as a makeshift Batcave.

An emotionless assassin (with a moral code!) who's also capable of cooking or uncooking the books for an assortment of unsavory clientele and getting out alive, Christian's unique talents have made him a high-valued target within the U.S. Treasury Department, whose Raymond King (J.K. Simmons) is intrigued by how this mystery man gets in, gets out and gets away so clean.

One explanation for Christian's success is that he gets his assignments from an unseen female handler who calls him from a Restricted number, though he assigns her a Happy Face to remind himself that she's a friend, not a foe. Restricted Happy Face, as we'll call her, clearly understands Christian's limitations when it comes to communication, as she says the words "heavy sigh" rather than breathes a heavy sigh to indicate her frustration. The identity of this character is a major twist that serves as this movie's slick ace in the hole.

But back to the labyrinth plot! When plucky financial whiz Dana Cummings (Anna Kendrick) discovers a multi-million-dollar error in her robotics company's books, her boss Lamar Blackburn (John Lithgow) hires Christian to find the missing money before he takes his company public. Christian is driven by the truth more than the money, and what starts out as a sparkly white-collar crime becomes a bloodbath in the film's second half as the body count rises and the actual accounting fades into the background.

Meanwhile, a savvy Treasury Department analyst (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) with a past of her own closes in on Christian in a boring subplot that drags the film down, but still pays off. And she's not the only one on his tail -- there's also a mysterious mercenary of sorts named Brax (Jon Bernthal) who's on a fateful collision course with Christian. Yes, that means we get to see The Punisher fight Daredevil again!

In terms of the supporting performances, Seth Lee and Robert C. Treveiler stand out as young Chris and the boy's father, respectively, while J.K. "I was old 10 years ago!" Simmons delivers in the one scene where he's actually asked to act.

However, veteran actors like Lithgow, Jean Smart and Jeffrey Tambor (as Christian's jailhouse mentor) are utterly wasted, while Kendrick doesn't fare much better, only adding to the awkwardness of each awkward social interaction with Affleck, though her character does pay off nicely. Indeed, the film deserves credit for resisting the urge to have her hook up with Affleck. Though Dana often feels like filler, she exists to help Christian complete his arc, which is to simply connect with someone else despite being "different."

Affleck himself has never been a great actor and can be a bit stiff as a leading man, but perhaps that explains why he seems right in his element as this robotic accountant, who comes off like the love child of Jason Bourne and John Nash of A Beautiful Mind fame. Affleck is better playing loud and boisterous -- think Good Will Hunting, Dazed & Confused, Boiler Room and yes, even Armaggeddon -- rather than the strong, silent type, yet his nuanced performance really works here.

Like its autistic protagonist, The Accountant is a movie that's different, but not lesser than its "neurotypical" counterparts. The main plot is super-convoluted, and yet the film works as well as it does because of the strength of its many subplots, which eventually come together to create the Jackson Pollock equivalent of a movie. It may look like a mess to the untrained eye, but the gifted among us can make sense of the chaos.

In the end, The Accountant is the smart kind of stupid fun, and even though it may not add up all the way, it's still surprisingly satisfying.