7.3 | / 10 |
Users | 3.6 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
As a math savant uncooks the books for a new client, the Treasury Department closes in on his activities and the body count starts to rise.
Starring: Ben Affleck, Anna Kendrick, J.K. Simmons, Jon Bernthal, Jeffrey TamborAction | 100% |
Thriller | 29% |
Crime | 10% |
Drama | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 16-bit)
French (Canada): Dolby Digital 5.1
Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1 (640 kbps)
Portuguese: Dolby Digital 5.1
English: Dolby Digital 5.1 (640 kbps)
English DD=audio descriptive; box listing of 2 Spanish and 2 French track is incorrect
English SDH, French, Portuguese, Spanish
Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (1 BD, 1 DVD)
UV digital copy
DVD copy
Slipcover in original pressing
Region free
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 2.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
There's an early scene in Warner's high-concept thriller, The Accountant, that is emblematic of the entire film. As an autistic boy intently assembles a jigsaw puzzle, he becomes loudly unhinged when he cannot complete the task because a puzzle piece has fallen to the floor out of his sight. Director Gavin O'Connor's film scatters an array of plot fragments across its two-hour running time, and you hold your breath waiting to see whether O'Connor (Pride and Glory) and screenwriter Bill Dubuque (The Judge) will ultimately supply every last piece necessary to complete the picture. When everything finally does snap into place, there's a palpable sense of relief that The Accountant actually fits together.
The Accountant was shot on film by Irish cinematographer Seamus McGarvey (The Avengers), with post-production completed on a digital intermediate at 2K. Warner's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray delivers the high quality of presentation that one would expect from a contemporary digital source, with superior sharpness and clarity and an absence of noise or interference. The film's palette favors cool and neutral colors, which is presumably intended to reflect the emotional detachment of the film's titular hero, who has a closet full of identical dark suits and is often shown isolated and framed by a rectangular fixture such as a door or window. The flashbacks to Christian's childhood feature warmer tones and have been given a slight softness to distinguish them from the present. Blacks are solid and deep, detail is plentiful, and a minutely fine grain pattern can still be discerned, despite the DI processing. Warner has given The Acccountant a capable encode with an average bitrate of 27.89 Mbps, which continues the theatrical group's trend toward less aggressive compression.
The Accountant arrives with a choice between 5.1 and 7.1 soundtracks, both encoded in lossless DTS-HD MA. Both tracks are excellent, but be prepared for a film that relies much more heavily on dialogue than action. The Accountant assembles its pieces through numerous scenes of character interaction, which are set in a wide variety of environments that the soundtrack meticulously re-creates without calling too much attention to its presence. Occasionally, the soundtrack enters Chris's head, and we hear remembered events mixing with the present or his thought processes pinging back and forth (the latter is particularly impressive in 7.1). The single most memorable effect is the deep, echoing boom of the Barrett M82A1M sniper rifle that is Chris's weapon of choice. In a climactic showdown between Chris and a houseful of bad guys, the alternation among pistols, automatic weapons and the Barrett's distinctive roar provides an organized cacophony that bounces back and forth through the viewing room. Dialogue is intelligible, well-positioned and properly prioritized. The brooding, ominous score is by the prolific Mark Isham, who previously scored Warrior for director O'Connor.
As the title of this review suggests, The Accountant has elements in common with Luc Besson's
Leon, of which the main character was also a
misfit with an almost preternatural gift for combat
and mayhem. But Besson used the action thriller format as a wrapper for an intimate character
study, as his titular hero formed an unexpected bond with a young girl, whereas O'Connor's film
never attempts to step outside genre conventions. Although it may lack a comic-book
provenance, The Accountant fits comfortably within the superhero genre, with autism reclassified
as a superpower and a mysterious hero with a secret identity and a troubled back story. What's
perhaps most impressive about O'Connor's work here is how he manages to check all the
superhero boxes and deliver an involving experience without the aid of expensive CGI or the
need to level a city to create a sense of danger. On a production budget of just $40 million, he's
crafted a more coherent and engaging narrative than any of Warner's DC films since the
Christopher Nolan Dark Knight trilogy.
Warner's Blu-ray treatment is solid and recommended.
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