Saturday, November 12, 2016

The Accountant (2016) + 9 years of movie blogging



I have a theory, empirically verified ... best movies come to you when you need them most. At least karma hit me with this often enough to get convinced. Examples are too personal for this blog and I didn't count all of them, but just to give at least something... I've seen "A Beautiful Mind" in the Spring of 2002, at a moment when I really really needed something motivating to get me on track for my high school graduation exams. No need for more details. Another minor example... I've watched "The Accountant" two weeks ago when I was thinking that I didn't have yet a top rated entry this year on my blog + nothing seemed coming also. Well ... here it is.

The problem is that I postponed writing this enough to lose lots of ideas. The story's focused on a guy with a particular type of autism, who ends up making a career in bookkeeping for very shady people. Freelance work, middle men connections, temporary identity. But the job hides much more behind it ... Starting with a not so happy childhood, but special in a way that I don't want to spoil, up to the relations with close relatives and the reasons for picking such a "grey" job instead of anything else. The latest client seems though a movement into a brighter area. He's a guy running a giant company of medical engineering who seems to record losses somewhere in the midst of tones of financial reports. So things appear to get more legit. Unfortunately a retiring director in the financial crimes department of the Treasury decides to task an analyst with tracing our "accountant". Which seems to be the main problem of our financial guy...

I guess the movie script is by far the best built piece of dramatic writing of anything I've watched in 2016 regarding the way the action develops. It might have predictable parts, maybe some dialogues could be improved, maybe the first part seems too lengthy, but ... The way the twists are interleaved, the way (maybe a bit annoying in the beginning) of how the background story is given to you in small pieces, the at least three ending surprises (maybe not that big, but many), and above all the fact that in the second half "things are not as they seem to be" comes back so often as hidden tagline, this is what shows what good writing really is. Despite all critics that seem to pick exactly on this.

I'm at 9 years of blogging (counting also the Romanian version) and I'm more and more disappointed of what I see that cashes in at box office and is also appreciated in the media... Honestly, it's deplorable to witness over-inflated ratings for a blockbuster that has the simplest story and puts a lot in catchy visuals when something else that requires a bit more than two neurons to understand what's going on is bashed on the reasons of too many plot lines, too complicated, too boring and convoluted ... No it's not, but it needs more than two neurons - it's frightening though that more and more critics (authorized) seem to have a limit of brain cells around that number. And unfortunately the movie industry listens... Contrary to the TV, which seems to do much better in the series area (guess less $ for explosions VFX compensates with better stories). On the other hand, 9 years ago my life was more calm, much less stress, better health and more time for movies. So maybe the present situation might have an impact in finding hard something that I can rate with a 5/5 (and even when I do like now it still seems a bit subjective ...).

I have to admit (again) that I'm thinking on closing this blog. Besides the facts that my writing got awfully repetitive, I'm always doing it on the run, I'm not really able lately to keep my "standard" average of 1 entry/week, now I also notice the above. Still ... as long as we have some movies that deserve a bit of fighting against the mainstream criticism, maybe it makes sense to go on :) ...

Rating: 5 out of 5 (usor subiectiv)

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