Assignment 17- Mary Huffman- The Absolute Truth of One John Wick and his Younger Sister, The Accountant

I am notorious for sleeping through movies, T.V. shows- nothing shown on a screen after 7 PM is safe. Last Saturday evening, I watched 3 movies in a row and managed to stay awake through Blazing Saddles and Coming to America, but Kevin Hart in Get Hard put me right to sleep. The first two movies I had already seen before, Blazing Saddles at least twice as many times as the latter, but Get Hard was a first-watch scenario. All this is to say that tried and true films usually keep me engaged enough to keep the naps away, but I’m a little bit of a hard sell when it comes to movies.

The John Wick franchise holds the record for most-played in the Huffman household. We aren’t a violent people, but those movies are nearly always playing on a host of channels. I think it makes my dad feel more manly when he gets his John Wick fix because, and even I will admit this, John Wick is a certifiable badass. I never sat down and watched the whole movie, but I think I’ve watched John Wick (either Chapter 1 or 2, I’m honestly not sure which) in its entirety just because of the sheer number of times it’s played in the living room. The movie is really about a semi-retired assassin-for-hire who just keeps shooting people, mostly because they messed up his car or blew up his dog. Oh, and he is on the run because he’s shooting people in the same field of work and he’s shooting them because he’s running from them. Quite a vicious cycle, really. This guy has a thing for cars, but he cares exponentially more about dogs. I love Keanu Reeves, especially in the Bill and Ted movies, but John Wick objectively lacks character or emotion. Maybe that’s because he kills people for a living, but that’s no excuse.

A film of similar type is The Accountant, which stars Ben Affleck (not my favorite) and Anna Kendrick (definitely my favorite). An autistic man works as an accountant for dangerous people who head illegal business endeavors. Because of his high-risk employment, the accountant is constantly moving and destroying his old personas. Of course, he gets tied up in a corrupt scheme and as he works with this company’s funds, he starts to realize he is involved in a deep money-laundering sort of conspiracy. Long story short, he’s on the run just like John Wick, only he has a maybe-girlfriend (Anna Kendrick) and an old couple to protect who cannot be made aware of his true identity. 

Though both movies lack depth, they more than make up for it in gun fights and cheesy dialogue. The Accountant is written with much more cliche and predictability, but the characters at least have more motive than a puppy or a Mustang.They do well what is required of them by the genre, but leave the audience with little more than an aroused violent instinct or heightened paranoia of bounty hunters. If you’re a softy at heart, but want to pretend you aren’t, I’d recommend the more sentiment-heavy Accountant, while the John Wick films are more for pure manly macho men who prefer untainted violence and plenty of grunting with their gun violence.