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Tackling the Stereotypes of Mental Disability: Affleck Stars in ‘The Accountant’

The past two years have been a very busy time for Ben Affleck – his role as Batman in Batman VS Superman and the upcoming Justice League movie, his directing and producing of a standalone Batman movie with now DC President […]

The past two years have been a very busy time for Ben Affleck – his role as Batman in Batman VS Superman and the upcoming Justice League movie, his directing and producing of a standalone Batman movie with now DC President Geoff Johns, and another thriller coming out in early 2017.

Christian Wolff (Ben Affleck) is a mathematics savant with more affinity for numbers than people. Using a small-town CPA office as a cover, he makes his living as a freelance accountant for dangerous criminal organizations. With a treasury agent (J.K. Simmons) hot on his heels, Christian takes on a state-of-the-art robotics company as a legitimate client. But as Wolff begins to discover more and more inconsistencies in the company’s accounts, bodies begin to pile…

Think finance is boring? Think again… Source

In recent years, Hollywood has seen many finance and banking-centric films gain critical acclaim. These films include The Big Short, which won the 2015 Academy Award for Best Adapted Screeplay and The Wolf Of Wall Street, which received five Oscar nominations and earned DiCaprio a Golden Globe for Best Actor. So, while some may roll their eyes at another banking/crime thriller movie, this film certainly doesn’t follow the normal formula.

Most banking thrillers have unsympathetic protagonists; the greedy Gordon Gekko from Wall Street or the charismatic and hedonistic Jordan Belfort from The Wolf of Wall Street. But in The Accountant, Affleck seems to be playing a much more sympathetic character, thanks in part to the trailer’s portrayal of Wolff as a dangerous, yet conflicted autistic man.

That’s right, an autistic protagonist in a crime thriller! As someone who has many close friends and family on the Autism Spectrum, I recognized Wolff’s autism immediately. His incredible cognitive abilities? Repeatedly blowing his fingertips before every task? The effort that he puts into organisation? All these idiosyncrasies and the trailer’s use of Radiohead‘s Everything In It’s Right Place show that Wolff’s autism will be a driving plot point for the film.

How will this autistic, financial genius cope when he is caught in the crossfire between the US government and a ruthless criminal organization? Find out when The Accountant hits Australian cinemas in November!