Tag: Ben Affleck

Screening Room: ‘The Accountant 2’ Anybody?

On By chrisbarsantiIn Film - Upcoming, streamingLeave a comment

After 2016’s extremely baffling action flick The Accountant found new life on Netflix and has a sequel on the way, I took a look back at the original.

An updated version of my first review is at Eyes Wide Open:

Back in April, the most popular film on Netflix was The Accountant. Subscribers were not clicking on new work like Zack Snyder’s damn-the-budget Star Wars fanfic Rebel Moon or Adam Sandler’s Spaceman. Instead, they wanted a 2016 thriller best remembered for all the popcorn it unintentionally caused audience members to spit out in baffled laughter…

Screening Room: ‘Air’

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Against all the odds, Ben Affleck’s new movie about how Nike signed Michael Jordan to an endorsement deal when he had just started his career is actually not too bad, in a Jerry Maguire kind of way.

My review is at PopMatters:

A true underdog redemption story with an unexpected kick, Air is about how shambling sports marketing executive Sonny Vaccaro (Matt Damon) turned around his career, transformed Nike into a globe-spanning behemoth, and revolutionized the athletic endorsement industry. Regardless of what Alex Convery’s script would like viewers to believe, none of that is actually that interesting. As written, there are many moments when Air could come across as little more than a Harvard Business Review case study put on film. As a director, Affleck knows what he has going for him here. Damon, who—much as it would be nice to see him take some Tom Ripley-like swings again—makes clear again in his role in Air his gift for bringing gravitas and depth to everyday guys…

Here’s the trailer:

Screening Room: ‘The Accountant’

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THE ACCOUNTANT

In The Accountant, Ben Affleck puts on glasses and his serious face to play … an accountant … who’s not really just an accountant. See? It’s like one of those twist things.

Directed by Gavin O’Connor (Warrior), The Accountant opens this week wide. My review is at Film Journal International:

In what could serve as the year’s most preposterous mainstream release, Affleck plays Christian Wolff, an accountant who works out of a strip mall in downstate Illinois, finding deductions for local farmers. Or does he? We know that he’s a high-functioning autistic after an opening scene with a child whose tics and inability to deal with small talk or inconsistency seem remarkably like Affleck’s dour-faced pocket-protector of a glowering adult. We also know that he’s more than he claims to be, after being fed into a parallel storyline in which Treasury Department honcho Ray King (J.K. Simmons) details Agent Medina (Cynthia Addai-Robinson), easily cowed due to her secret dark past, to uncover the identity of a mysterious man who has been doing forensic accounting for everyone from terrorists to cartels…

Here’s the trailer:

Screening Room: Review Roundup

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Justin Timberlake and Ben Affleck wonder what 'Runner Runner' means
Justin Timberlake and Ben Affleck wonder what ‘Runner Runner’ means

With awards season just around the corner, studios big and small are finishing their late summer/early fall product dump. Here’s a quick rundown of reviews I’ve written on some other releases that have mostly gone unnoticed:

Runner Runner — Justin Timberlake plays Princeton math geek who goes to Costa Rica to be seduced into Ben Affleck’s sinister, high-stakes world of online gambling. Ridiculous as it sounds. Review here.

Bounty Killer — A post-apocalyptic, Mad Max knock-off with tongue planted firmly in cheek. C+ for effort; not as funny as it thinks it is. Review here.

Symphony of the Soil — Ever wonder what the difference is between soil and dirt? No? Review here.

The Dirties — Intriguing faux-documentary story about a kid making a movie about taking revenge on the school bullies. Starts off as gimmick, turns into uncomfortably close-to-home comment on violent media saturation. Worth seeking out. Review here.

New in Theaters: ‘To the Wonder’

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to_the_wonder1
Olga Kurylenko and Ben Affleck grin and bear it

TO-THE-WONDER-PosterWhen Terence Malick visited The Tree of Life on the world, it was something of a revelation. Whether viewers found it masterful and meaningful or grandiose and just plain silly, it left an impression. His newest, To the Wonder—in which Ben Affleck wanders around France and Oklahoma looking almost as lost as his female co-stars—draws from the same themes and stylistic template but to much lesser effect.

To the Wonder opens this week in limited release. My full review is at Film Journal International.

The trailer is here: