Funny as it is, an uncomfortable mean streak runs beneath the bit too. The scene asks viewers to laugh not just at Wolff’s blunt responses, but also at the desperate 40-something singles who rush up to Wolff’s table only to get frustrated and hurt by the real guy. Yet the scene also works because of the aplomb of the performances, the big comic takes by the actresses playing the singles, and by Affleck as Wolff.
As demonstrated in The Way Back, his previous collaboration with director O’Connor, Affleck excels at playing insincerity, able to portray someone who doesn’t mean the charming things he says, but deceives out of a deep sadness and loneliness, not out of a desire to manipulate. He plays Wolff as someone who wishes that he could connect with others but doesn’t know how, keeping the audience on the character’s side throughout the movie.
It also helps that The Accountant 2 pairs Affleck with Bernthal right from the beginning, letting the movie operate as a buddy action comedy in the vein of 48 Hrs. or Lethal Weapon. An incredibly charismatic actor who can find notes of pathos in tough guys, Bernthal’s always a joy to watch, but he sometimes over relies on his tics—darting his head back and forth to portray frustration or pointing aggressively when his tough guys get sad. Bernthal’s makes no effort to complicate those tics with this guy, but they all work because he’s playing next to Affleck’s buttoned-down Wolff, a man almost devoid of affect, resulting in a pleasing combination.
Bernthal’s also a great action performer, which comes in handy with The Accountant 2‘s many visceral action scenes. In the nine years between the two Accountant films, the John Wick franchise has raised expectations for Western action, making the frenetic gun battles of previous American genre entries insufficient. The Accountant 2 still has lots of scenes of people shooting projectiles at one another from a covered distance, but O’Conor, fight coordinator David Conk, and their team of stunt performers keep things feeling real and visceral, especially when the guns go away and the action plays out in clearly staged and practical hand-to-hand combat.
So great are these comic and action beats that viewers hardly notice the many problems in Bill Dubuque’s script. In addition to a story that makes autism into an X-Men style mutant ability, The Accountant 2 even features a stately special school where gifted youngsters use their talents in a secret underground computer lab. However, the film also uses too many other ugly American genre tropes. Once again, the bad guys are Mexicans with lots of tattoos, who menace women forced into sex work and children who stare longingly into the distance, waiting for our white American male heroes to save them.
In fairness, Dubuque’s script tries to complicate those tropes. The true big bads are two white guys (Robert Morgan and Grant Harvey), and the primary plot driver is Marybeth Medina (Cynthia Addai-Robinson), who returns from the first film with an upgrade to Treasury Department chief. She is the one who contracts Wolff to look for Anaïs. Anaïs herself acts as an agency: a Mexican woman on a mission of vengeance against those who stole her family.
