Savantism – Action Hero Movies

In this movie Bruce Willis plays an FBI agent called Art Jeffries who stumbles across a boy who is being hunted by NSA agents and hitmen who have already killed his parents. The boy is autistic and is wanted because he cracked a code. Bruce tries to protect him. That’s the top and bottom of this movie – it’s a fairly simple but effective plot, with screenplay fairly well executed. The traits of autism depicted in this movie are a mix of authentic and misplaced stereotypes. Overall I rate this an OK movie because it stays captivating quite well on a basic level, mainly thanks to Bruce’s good acting and an effective script albeit playing to a very simple plot. It’s generally a mix of mild action with mild drama. It’s also a fairly memorable movie due to its unique and simple but intriguing and well-executed script.

Strong cast members include Kim Dickens who plays Stacey, the lead female, who helps mind the kid; and Chi McBride who plays Tommy, Art’s colleague at the FBI, who helps him out a lot. Alec Baldwin and Lindsey Ginter play the main baddies – the main brains and the main braun respectively. Still, as respectable as is all their performances, Bruce Willis is the sole star of the show by a massive margin.

The autistic boy, called Simon Lynch, was played by Miko Hughes, and his performance didn’t impress me at all. Fortunately, Bruce’s charisma is ever-present in this movie, and makes a natural distraction from Miko’s poor acting here.

The Accountant is a cool movie to watch for the first time, especially for anyone interested in how Asperger Syndrome (and Savant Syndrome) can affect the performance of a martial artist. Many movies have portrayed a slick, meticulously accurate assassin but few go so far as to portray such a well rounded account of autism by the lead character – this movie is like a cross between Hitman and Rain Man.

In terms of martial arts moves, there’s nothing flashy here. There’s a lot of quick-kill gun shooting and a bit of empty-handed combat of a similar nature. There’s no classical exotic moves but there is a good representation of the spirit of a ninja, you could say.

Casting wasn’t bad – there are multiple strong performances in this movie, including by Jon Bernthal (Marvel’s ‘The Punisher’) and above all the lead role by Ben Affleck.

There are times where production has shined by taking well-researched notions and strong creative ideas then doing them justice on screen, especially where traits of Higher Functioning Autism could manifest themselves in the life of a careful assassin.

The genre is a bit James Bond without the humour – it’s callous from start to finish but only faintly gritty and containing enough James Bond style features to make the movie very watchable by fans of that genre. It has a bit of a simplistic drawn-out ending which makes rewatching it less fun than it otherwise would be – perhaps the writers became complacent after a decent beginning and middle, or the producers ran out of budget to wrap things up in style, or they preferred to linger in the grittier drama genre that the movie exposed us to throughout, even though the bulk of the movie appeals to the opposite audience. There are probably certain people who love both genres, but for a fan of high budget action who steers clear of gritty drama, I would rate this movie an 8 for first-time viewing and slightly lower for rewatchings. Still, it had so much potential and such great good parts (demonstrated perfectly by the trailer) that it could have easily been rated higher with a bit more work, although that would probably have been to the dissatisfaction of gritty drama lovers – perhaps you can’t please everyone and trying to do so may have been the reason why this movie never achieved the heights it was knocking on the door for. Still, a good watch.