In half of his scenes in The Accountant 2, Jon Bernthal‘s character Braxton eats something sweet. Sometimes he’s finishing a quart of ice cream. Sometimes he’s sucking on a lolly. But he’s always eating. And yet, during an extended comic scene in which Braxton wears nothing but black undies and black socks, there’s not a single inch of body fat to be seen. Anyone who wants to enjoy The Accountant 2 must be willing to overlook these glaring departures from reality, because the movie outdoes its 2016 predecessor with its absurd portrayal of autism, handling the condition with as much insight and sensitivity as Rain Man. But anyone who can approach The Accountant 2 as pure fiction will have a blast and enjoy it as a fun and dumb crowdpleaser. After an opening sequence that introduces Daniella Pineda as a walking, killing MacGuffin called Anaïs, this Gavin O’Connor sequel catches up with Christian Wolff (still played by Ben Affleck) as a man whose severe autism makes him an incredibly effective bookkeeper for underground organizations. His autism, combined with the training he received from his special forces father, also makes him an effective killer, a skill he uses when one of those organizations crosses a line. Outside of a line or two of exposition, The Accountant 2 doesn’t go much further into Wolff’s backstory, assuming that viewers already know or don’t care about it. Instead Wolff enters the film in a funny sequence at a speed dating event. Using his analytical skills, Wolff has determined the most efficient and effective profile, drawing droves of women to his table. Yet each of the women walks away in disappointment when Wolff’s inability to read social cues results in him leveling an unflattering remark. Funny as it is, an uncomfortable mean streak runs beneath the bit too. The scene asks viewers to laugh not just at Wolff’s blunt responses, but also at the desperate 40-something singles who rush up to Wolff’s table only to get frustrated and hurt by the real guy. Yet the scene also works because of the aplomb of the performances, the big comic takes by the actresses playing the singles, and by Affleck as Wolff. As demonstrated in The Way Back, his previous collaboration with director O’Connor, Affleck excels at playing insincerity, able to portray someone who doesn’t mean the charming things he says, but deceives out of a deep sadness and loneliness, not out of a desire to manipulate. He plays Wolff as someone who wishes that he could connect with others but doesn’t know how, keeping the audience on the character’s side throughout the movie. It also helps that The Accountant 2 pairs Affleck with Bernthal right from the beginning, letting the movie operate as a buddy action comedy in the vein of 48 Hrs. or Lethal Weapon. An incredibly charismatic actor who can find notes of pathos in tough guys, Bernthal’s always a joy to watch, but he sometimes over relies on his tics—darting his head back and forth to portray frustration or pointing aggressively when his tough guys get sad. Bernthal’s makes no effort to complicate those tics with this guy, but they all work because he’s playing next to Affleck’s buttoned-down Wolff, a man almost devoid of affect, resulting in a pleasing combination. Bernthal’s also a great action performer, which comes in handy with The Accountant 2‘s many visceral action scenes. In the nine years between the two Accountant films, the John Wick franchise has raised expectations for Western action, making the frenetic gun battles of previous American genre entries insufficient. The Accountant 2 still has lots of scenes of people shooting projectiles at one another from a covered distance, but O’Conor, fight coordinator David Conk, and their team of stunt performers keep things feeling real and visceral, especially when the guns go away and the action plays out in clearly staged and practical hand-to-hand combat. So great are these comic and action beats that viewers hardly notice the many problems in Bill Dubuque’s script. In addition to a story that makes autism into an X-Men style mutant ability, The Accountant 2 even features a stately special school where gifted youngsters use their talents in a secret underground computer lab. However, the film also uses too many other ugly American genre tropes. Once again, the bad guys are Mexicans with lots of tattoos, who menace women forced into sex work and children who stare longingly into the distance, waiting for our white American male heroes to save them. In fairness, Dubuque’s script tries to complicate those tropes. The true big bads are two white guys (Robert Morgan and Grant Harvey), and the primary plot driver is Marybeth Medina (Cynthia Addai-Robinson), who returns from the first film with an upgrade to Treasury Department chief. She is the one who contracts Wolff to look for Anaïs. Anaïs herself acts as an agency: a Mexican woman on a mission of vengeance against those who stole her family. Yet no part of the film seems particularly interested in that. Anaïs and the white bad guys disappear from the screen for long stretches, and their returns feel like unnecessary stuffing. Medina sets the plot in motion when she contacts Wolff, but then she constantly tries to stop it from continuing, nagging Wolff and Braxton about their methods and reassuring the viewers that the U.S. government doesn’t condone invasive surveillance, illegal extradition, and other things that the movie portrays as really, really cool. Join our mailing list Get the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox! Which is the case for most things in The Accountant 2. They look really cool or feel really fun in the moment, but become uncomfortable when taken seriously for more than two seconds. The movie is best enjoyed, then, in the exact opposite manner of Christian Wolff. Don’t analyze what you see, don’t look for patterns. Thrill to the explosions, laugh at the buddy interactions, and God help anyone who tries to apply The Accountant franchise to real life. The Accountant 2 opens in theaters on April 25, 2025.