thmscosgrove

Wow, a lot of people seem to hate this movie. Upfront, I don't care about historical accuracy. It's a movie, and it puts a disclaimer upfront at the start. If you want some pious documentary, go elsewhere for that. I would say the primary strengths of the movie are, cinematography, costume, production design and cast. Tonally it's a bit weird, yes. The comedy jars somewhat and the freeze-frames don't quite work, but they aren't bad. Same for the split screen. There certainly seems to be a trend with costume drama recently to make things irreverent. My Lady Jane, for example. Despite all the quibbles, I still liked the move. Some here compare it to Kill Bill, which is unbelievably stupid. Neither of the female leads is a brilliant assassin, although one of them rises to a girl boss moment, she then oddly retreats to a hiding place in a brothel. Ultimately, this is all bonkers stuff. The cast chews the scenery with great pride. It's very rare to see something on this scale come out of Europe. The film clearly got a lot of money from somewhere. I do wish it had a darker more serious tone. I kept thinking of things like Red Sonja while watching it. Colourful and different, and whether historically accurate or not, it made me interested in the time and place.

Six years after its release I finally hit play on this. The screenplay is a work of greatness. Observant, witty, believable, clever... the superlatives go on. It's also quite heartbreaking in the very real way it depicts a relationship breaking up. The downward spiral is simultaneously gripping and hard to watch, although its sympathies do feel skewed toward the Adam Driver character. Although he's messed up, he comes across as fundamentally decent. You really feel for him as the story unfolds. The acting is amazing, particularly from Driver, but everyone else is great too. Aspiring writers should study this script for its simple brilliance.

For the most part, Accountant 1 was solid. The character was interesting and the story fine. I had thought about going to see P2 in theatres, but now I'm glad I didn't. As some other reviews rightly point out, the plot is all over the place. For me, no strand added up. I was watching but simply didn't care about anything. It was hard to know what the central story was. It made me appreciate the Jack Reacher movies a lot more and wonder what went wrong in the making of this mess. The writing, sure. It's mostly terrible. There's the occasional good bit. Night shots of a motorcycle speeding through a city are very cool. It's just that you expect a lot more. The inevitable shoot up at the end is (sorry), rubbish. We've seen it all a million times before and done better. The coolest things about the Accountant 1 were him giving Tax advice to hard pressed citizens. This is just a lazy cash in but sad to say for me, I watched bits on FFWD and am no longer a fan.