YMMV / The Accountant (2016)

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Braxton. Is he really an amoral gun-for-hire who will bully or kill anyone for a paycheck, or does he have his own moral code similar to Wolff's? While he is seen taking a white-collar criminal down a peg, he also kills one person, and is implied to kill another, who are ultimately revealed to be innocent. However, we never actually see Braxton kill the second person (nor do we know what kind of conversation they had if he did kill her), and Braxton's comment about "sticky fingers" to the first person could mean he thought the man was guilty, possibly because his boss (the movie's Big Bad) told him so. It may be Braxton let his boss die not just because he wasn't going to stand in Wolff's way, but also because he had been mislead and was ready to kill the guy himself anyway.

• Anti-Climax Boss: For all the deaths he instigated, Lamar goes down in seconds. Justified as he's a Non-Action Big Bad.
  • Despite being the opposite of a Non-Action Guy, after beating up Wolff quite seriously, the moment Braxton instigates his brother enough to force him into action, Wolff blocks three attempted punches then easily takes Braxton down to point a gun in his face.
• Captain Obvious Reveal: The fact that Braxton (the merc boss) is Wolff's brother is almost painfully obvious from his second appearance onwards due to the lack of other potential suspects and his resemblance to his brother. Any audience reaction to it essentially boils down to "I knew it!".
• Critical Dissonance: Has a 51% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a 51 on Metacritic, with audiences responding to it much more favorably. It grossed a respectable $155 million at the box office for a budget of $44 million and has a CinemaScore rating of "A" (on a scale from "F" at the worst to "A+" at the best) from audiences and a solid 7.4/10 on IMDB.
• Diagnosed by the Audience: While Christian's autism is established, whether he is a psychopath and why he's okay with killing some people but not others is up for grabs.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Dana. See Just Here for Godzilla below.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Seeing the WTF look on Jon Bernthal's face as Wolff cuts through his mercenaries like Frank Castle will do to ANVIL mooks just a couple of years later. You could even view the movie as The Adventures of the Punisher's Even More Badass Brother!
• Just Here for Godzilla:
  • Some people went to see the movie due to the main protagonist being autistic.
  • A bigger crowd went to see it just because Anna Kendrick was in it and were looking forward to a more dramatic role of hers. Judging from comments on Twitter and Tumblr, they weren't disappointed.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Upon the teaser's release, many have taken to calling the film a spiritual Batman movie due to Ben Affleck and J. K. Simmons' suspiciously similar roles (Ray King fitting The Commissioner Gordon trope almost to a T) to those in the DC Extended Universe. The trailer was even edited to include Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice footage to address how much the tone of the film fits.
  • You could also call this Batman vs The Punisher.
  • A few people online half-jokingly called it◊ Ben Affleck playing The Angry Video Game Nerd due to Affleck's similar appearance to James Rolfe when playing the Nerd. There's even a joke in the movie about Wolff having a pocket protector, which is mentioned in one of the lyrics of the AVGN theme song ("He's got a pocket pouch, and a filthy mouth...")
  • The film enjoys an odd appreciation from fans of All Elite Wrestling, as The Accountant was a very common lead-in for episodes of AEW Dynamite while it aired on TNT. Plenty of jokes about AEW viewers only ever seeing the last five minutes of this film abound.
• Moral Event Horizon: As bad as some of the previous things Lamar did, ordering a successful hit on his own sister, who apparently wasn't in on his scheming, really crosses the pale.

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