The action movie "The Accountant 2" about a bookkeeper with a shotgun, equally feared by taxpayers and street thugs, has been released digitally. Is the hitman accountant really that scary in the sequel to the 2016 action film? We figure it out in ou...

The stern accountant with autism spectrum disorder, Christian Wolff (Ben Affleck), returns to work: now he counts more, shoots less, and explores dating apps. But after the death of his assistant Ray King (J.K. Simmons), Wolff has to break his rule of working alone. He teams up with his brother Braxton (Jon Bernthal) and follows the trail of the killers.

In an era of endless remakes, prequels, and long-awaited (or not) sequels, the release of "The Accountant 2" could hardly surprise anyone. If anything, it reminded us of the existence of the first part, which came out, believe it or not, a whole 9 years ago. In that time, the world of cinema has spawned dozens of action films, echoes of which still resonate in the form of "The Master", "The Beekeeper", and other B-movie representatives. And Ben Affleck himself has been through a lot over these years: Batman with stubble that doesn't fit in the mask, a romance with Ana de Armas, marriage and divorce from J.Lo, endless memes. So the sequel to "The Accountant" was a kind of surprise, something least expected. But it happened. To the delight (or not) of the actor's fans.

Times have changed, now the era of streaming reigns, and "The Accountant 2" was doomed from the start to go straight into the dark vault of the digital catalog, bypassing the big screen. Why a sequel was needed is a rhetorical question. The ending of the first part didn't pose puzzles or require further development. And Affleck's character, the hitman accountant, despite the unconventional plot (a bookkeeper with a rifle) and polished action, didn't linger in memory for long. It's unlikely anyone missed him much. The new film could have possibly fixed that, but it turned out too faceless, as if made "for show." This is eloquently indicated even by the poster, made seemingly on the fly: Affleck's head is photoshopped onto someone else's body, and the font looks like it was hastily scribbled in Paint. And since it's been a while, it's hard to avoid watching the original to understand the intricacies of the family ties between the two brothers.

But, jumping ahead, little has changed in the characters' behavior in the sequel. Affleck, with the same Terminator-like composure, continues to put everyone in their place, conducting educational work in various areas of life: from analyzing dating apps to auditing a dishonest pizza seller (at times, this sparks genuine interest but doesn't get proper development). He remains cold towards his younger brother, and when the latter complains about eight years of silence, he dryly retorts: "Well, you had my number." "And what's wrong with that?" a reasonable question echoes in the mind. "He's right, actually," Bernthal's character mentally replies, shrugging. In this vein, a good half of the film unfolds. But in the end, the whole essence of the arguments between Affleck and Bernthal's characters boils down to the classic table phrase: "Brother, are you or aren't you?" Following that, as a rule, good old fisticuffs ensue, and the viewer gets them in the film.

At some point, the investigation into Ray King's murder is left by the wayside, and the brothers start having fun without ceremony, reminiscent of a mid-tier American buddy movie with pretensions to "Rain Man." Where the older brother, like Dustin Hoffman's character, attempts to dance with a girl and manages to get her phone number, causing unprecedented delight in the younger one. It's clear that the film's director is most sympathetic to this ongoing process. And that this is still an action movie, Gavin O'Connor reluctantly remembers closer to the finale. But hopes for spectacular fights, if not on the level of "John Wick," then at least "Extraction," are shattered: a couple of shootouts in the dust, unexpressive hand-to-hand combat, and sluggish chases. If in the first part the director worked like an A-student, here he resembles a graduate who has given up on details.

Evgeny Belousov

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The strongest point in the film, oddly enough, is the humor. Sharp, concise jokes scattered by Christian throughout the film liven up the story a bit and bring a genuine smile. His younger brother Braxton doesn't lag behind, periodically bursting into funny, profane remarks, making this island of plot increasingly resemble a comedy. And if not for the genre constraints, who knows, O'Connor might have produced a decent satire or a biting social pamphlet. But it feels like at the last moment the director simply chickened out: what if the audience doesn't appreciate it?

"The Accountant 2" is a sequel that nobody asked for but got. The film exists by inertia, without fire, without passion, without a real reason to be. It's not exactly terrible, but it's not good either: just a gray shadow of the original, slightly diluted with decent jokes. If the first "The Accountant" was a solid middle-of-the-road film, then the second is its tired doppelgänger, who showed up to the party 9 years late and now awkwardly tries to fit into the new cinematic landscape.