My heart goes out to those with special needs.  However, that can define a large group of people with a spectrum of issues.  What a movie like The Accountant (2016) demonstrates is that we do not have to be defined by what the rest of society refers to as “problems.”  At the same time, I wish it were given a more peaceful vehicle of expression.  With such a brief context and title, you might expect a societal drama about a person who overcomes a condition to have a fulfilling life.  That is actually not far from the truth, but it is also a violent action flick.  To be fair, anyone with a form of autism as Christian Wolf (Ben Affleck) can do whatever they want with their life.  God does not make mistakes, and as this movie underscores, we should treat such people less as freaks and just plainly different.  Everyone is different in their own way, and those idiosyncrasies should be viewed as just a fraction of God’s wide creation.  I may not approve of some of the activity seen here, but at least he is doing some good with his talents?

You would not think there was anything good going on from the beginning of The Accountant.  A law enforcement officer is creeping through a building rapidly filling with dead bodies.  Because there is a non-linear format to this story, I am going to straighten out the narrative.  The person doing the killing is the aforementioned Christian, but how he gets to this point is the subject of a few flashbacks, other than the one at the start.  Born with autism, as a young adolescent (Seth Lee) he is brought to Harbor Neuroscience, a facility specializing in helping children with developmental challenges. Christian’s mother (Mary Kroft) thinks this will help her son, but his father (Rob Treveiler), a colonel in the United States Army’s psychological operations division has other opinions.  Harbor Neuroscience’s director (Jason Davis) believes Christian’s main trigger is a stimulus one.  The colonel counters that the world is full of stimuli and the family leaves.  Eventually, Christian’s parents separate, and it is at this point that the colonel commences training Christian and his younger brother Braxton (Jake Presley) in martial arts.  Later, Christian joins the military, serving with his father.  Together, they attend his mother’s funeral, who had subsequently remarried and started a new family.  At the wake, an altercation breaks out when Christian sees his mom’s new husband and sons, leading to a gun being drawn on him and his dad taking a bullet for him.  The colonel dies and Christian spends a few years in prison.  While incarcerated, he meets Francis Silverberg (Jeffrey Tambor), a bookkeeper for the mafia, who had become a federal informant from behind bars. Francis shows Christian fatherly concern, while also teaching the younger man everything about the seedy underworld of the finances for criminal enterprises.  Because numbers are Christian’s passion, he is fascinated by the puzzles involved in Francis’ line of work.  Unfortunately, Francis is released, meaning he no longer has the protection of jail gates.  It does not take long for him to be found and tortured to death by the mafia.  When Christian hears of the incident, he breaks out of the penitentiary and murders everyone responsible.  This is the first scene in the movie.  The officer called to the scene is treasury agent Raymond “Ray” King (J. K. Simmons), who had been investigating organized crime.  Christian stops short of putting a bullet in Ray when the assassin asks about the cop.  Ray is honest about being bad at his job, but a good dad, and with that, Christian lets him live.  Ten years pass, and Ray is now the head of the United States’ Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN).  He calls into his office Marybeth Medina (Cynthia Addai-Robinson), a relatively new analyst with a falsified criminal history.  Using her past against her, Ray asks that she investigate Christian, wanting to figure out his current whereabouts and identity.  In those intervening years, it appears that Christian had not only taken over Francis’ role, but had taken his accounting work overseas, helping mend the books of some of the richest and most powerful people.  Still, he keeps a low-profile, with a house and an office in suburban Chicago.  This includes taking regular clients, like the elderly couple whom he helps with their taxes.  His next big-time customer is Lamar Blackburn (John Lithgow), founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Living Robotics.  Christian is brought to Living Robotics in order to figure out discrepancies in their books, originally discovered by Dana Cummings (Anna Kendrick), an in-house accountant.  She is friendly to Christian, but such are his social shortcomings that he is initially stand-offish.  Still, after spending all night to figure out the puzzle, he is excited to share with her his findings.  The next person to find out is Rita Blackburn (Jean Smart), Rita’s sister and partner, who is informed that there is over $60 million missing.  This is when people start dying, starting with Ed Chilton (Andy Umberger), chief financial officer of Living Robotics.  The person hired to do the dirty work is Braxton (Jon Bernthal), who has his own private security company.  Braxton, unaware that it is his brother that he has also been paid to assassinate, sends his minions after Christian and Dana.  Though it is outside of his regular protocol based on the directives of the voice that gives him directions, he decides to save Dana’s life.  From there, he goes to confront Rita, but finds her dead before his arrival.  It all points to Lamar being the villain.  As this realization dawns on Christian, Marybeth has figured out his identity.  She and Ray travel to Christian’s house, and it is there that she learns of Ray’s involvement with the eponymous person, and that she will be taking over his duties when he soon retires.  Given how Christian murders his way through Braxton’s men, and everything else Christian has done, you can understand her hesitancy.  Christian does this to get to Lamar, but reconciles with Braxton before shooting the corrupt businessman dead.  After this, everyone pretty much goes their separate way and the movie ends.

To reiterate, I did not summarize The Accountant from beginning to end as it plays out in the movie.  It is different from the given sequence, and sometimes that is difficult for people.  Different is a theme in the film, and one I would like to explore from a Catholic perspective.  The word “different” by itself is an odd one, no pun intended.  As I said in the introduction, God does not make mistakes, which is another way of thinking about “different.”  For example, if you give an answer on a test that is incongruous to the correct one, then that is considered a “mistake.”  I get that words can have multiple meanings, but that same logic applies to all God’s creations.  Scriptures has lots of references to the wide variety of God’s created things, but one of my favorite passages in this regard is Romans 12:3-8.  In talking about how we are all one in the Body of Christ, it begins by discussing in verse three how none of us should think we are better and more important than another.  We all have our individual tasks to do in order for the body to function, and all of them are essential in God’s eyes, no matter how they look or talk.  There is no “mistake” in His design.  Further, one can make the argument that people like Christian see the whole and how it fits together.  I am referring to his ability to solve puzzles and being a gifted mathematician.  Still, as the film also covers, most view people like him as different in a negative way.  These thoughts are voiced by Braxton when they are finally reunited in Lamar’s house.  The reason for their estrangement is Braxton blaming Christian for their father’s death.  In taking out his anger on Christian, Braxton calls his brother a “freak.”  Instead of acknowledging Christian’s God given gifts and talents, Braxton angrily resorts to what many do when they encounter something out of the ordinary.  In other words, not normal.  Yet, what is normal?  It is a relative term, and meaningless because God loves us all.

God loves us, but people like Christian, at least as his condition is portrayed in The Accountant, are unable to reflect that love in ways we expect.  That is okay, too.  Perhaps the most tragic moment in the film comes when he admits to wanting to be able to interact with others, but being ill-equipped to do so.  We should take these ideas into consideration and treat them as God’s children like the rest of us.  The only thing keeping this from being a full recommendation is the violence.