TMW #47: The Accountant 2, Havoc and The Friend reviewed
Plus the week's must-watch trailers
Happy Friday…?
Why the question mark, you ask? Because this is one of those weeks where the movie gods have not shined full-beam upon us. Good news is we’ve dolled out four stars to action cinema this week. Bad news is, that’s split between two big releases, Ben Affleck sequel The Accountant 2 and Gareth The Raid Evans’ Tom Hardy vehicle Havoc.
Thankfully, we also have the more loveable canine comedy-drama The Friend and the first chunk of season 2 of Andor, one of the best Star Wars stories in living memory.
The quality continues below the paywall with our usual rundown of recommendations from the Wingman team. And if this weekend’s major releases don’t fill you with too much excitement, cast your eye further down the road with our round-up of the latest trailers, including predators (the extra-terrestrial kind), presidents and Pitch Perfect reunions.
If you’re eager to get fully on board with the Wingman experience, now’s the time to consider a paid subscription, for only £6 per month - that’s less than the average price of a movie ticket. And we promise never to serve up two-star disappointment.
We heartily welcome your likes, your shares and your restacks, not to mention your comments - we’d love to get your take on this week’s movies. (Or any week’s TBH.)
We’ll be back on Tuesday with more commentary, think pieces and plain old film-focused fun. In the meantime, happy reading (no question mark this time)...
Matthew (Matt and Jordan)
The Accountant 2
⭐⭐☆☆☆
15, in cinemas now
When it comes to films screaming out for sequels, 2016’s The Accountant wasn’t exactly at the top of the list. But there is a certain logic to its existence. The original posted decent box-office returns and a seemingly strong at-home half-life, and while it was inherently silly, it wasn’t without its old-school merits. The high concept saw autistic savant Christian Wolff (Ben Affleck) doing the books for various criminal enterprises, while also donating vast sums to the charity that helped him as a kid and giving tip-offs to the feds. Plus, he has Bourne-level assassin skills.
With spoilers for that film incoming, it was also revealed that his brother Braxton (Jon Bernthal) was a hitman, the two having been trained up in their youth by an overprotective father. The sequel - from returning director Gavin O’Connor and screenwriter Bill Dubuque - brings that relationship to the forefront in a kind of ultra-violent buddy comedy. Chris becomes embroiled in a case that got his former treasury contact Ray King (J.K. Simmons) killed, and he calls on his somewhat estranged brother for assistance, to the raised eyebrow of Ray’s replacement, Marybeth Medina (Cynthia Addai-Robinson).
Bernthal is one of those natural screen presences with charisma to burn, and he’s damn convincing in the fighting (guns and fists). The odd-couple chemistry between the no-longer-lone Wolffs is the big selling point here, and how far that wins you over will be hugely indicative of your general enjoyment of the film. These kinds of thrillers don’t just rely on suspension of disbelief, they thrive on it. There’s a certain vicarious thrill to watching these guys unleash their superhuman skill-sets to solve a case, skill-sets that are augmented considerably by the remote team of autistic children who provide back-up tech support from the foundation Chris grew up at. Whether you think this is empowering or insulting to neurodivergent audiences will be a personal reaction (and, similarly, Affleck’s performance is more broadly comedic this time).
There’s something jarring about the incongruously silly humour (Braxton’s desperation to adopt a pet, Chris’ rigging of a speed-dating session) and the violence and weighty themes that are threaded throughout. On the one hand, you have Marybeth taking the case extremely seriously, but on the other, Braxton's casual attitude towards killing people is treated as a joke. It’s hard to know how to feel when the guns-blazing climax (which is well staged from an action choreography perspective) sees the brothers racing against time to prevent a group of children from being massacred in an unmarked grave. This tastelessness sours some of the other more straightforwardly enjoyable elements, and the plot doesn’t have the same closed-loop satisfaction as its predecessor. Unlike its protagonist’s faultless spreadsheets, it just doesn’t add up. (Matt Maytum)
IN SHORT: The winning combo of Affleck and Bernthal deserved a better vehicle than this.
STAY FOR THE END CREDITS? No need to stick around here. There’s no tease for O’Connor’s proposed threequel.
A BEAUTIFUL EASTER EGG: One of Chris’s mathematician aliases references John Nash, the subject of A Beautiful Mind.
Havoc
TBC, on Netflix now
⭐⭐☆☆☆
Musing noirishly in his opening voiceover on life, family, making murderous choices and so on, seasoned detective Walker (Tom Hardy) says of his shady moral code, “For a while it works… until it doesn’t.” It’s more like the reverse in Havoc: Gareth Evans’ film only really cranks to life in its set-piece-led second half. And even then, it feels a few notches down from the visceral pummelling of the writer/director’s best work, The Raid (2011) and its 2014 sequel.
Echoing the more convoluted ambitions of the latter rather than the first Raid’s savage simplicity, Havoc gives good-bad cop Walker a straightforward goal - protect the wayward son (Justin Cornwell) of a crooked politician (Forest Whitaker) - but then entangles him in a messy web of drug deals gone south, vengeful Triads and bad-bad cops (thanklessly led by Timothy Olyphant). Characters and dialogue are as riddled with cliches as bodies are with bullets, from Walker being a deadbeat dad (who sheepishly buys last-minute Christmas presents at the local convenience store) to pretty much every line Whitaker utters: “This is MY town!” “I make one phone call, you and your friends go down for life”. Then there’s the old chestnut of bloody mayhem ironically juxtaposed with soothing music (Bing Crosby crooning ‘O Holy Night’ during a motorbike ambush).
Aside from the opening salvo’s airborne washing machine, Evans’ deadly flair doesn’t fully assert itself until he uncorks a bravura nightclub bloodbath, weaponised champagne bucket and all. Running a close second is the climactic, remote-cabin showdown, with its many stompings and skewerings captured in unflinching close-up. That said, there are times amid all the muzzle flash and judder-cam that it’s hard to work out who’s harpooning whom. Not, perhaps, that it matters too much when the emotional stakes are low; despite a running theme of parental angst, Havoc is too overcrowded to make us care much about the fate of Charlie, who’s more macguffin than prodigal son. (Matthew Leyland)
PLAYING HAVOC: The US-set film was shot entirely in Cardiff, with a government press release declaring it “one of the biggest films ever to be produced in Wales”. While principal photography wrapped in 2021, required reshoots weren’t completed until last summer.
Andor S2
(Eps 1-3 out now, Disney+)
⭐⭐⭐⭐☆
Lauded for its mature and nuanced exploration of rebellion in a fascist state, Andor’s shockingly ace first season was a rare win for Disney-era Star Wars. To say this conclusive second season comes with high expectations, then, would be a Death Star-sized understatement. But on the strength of this week’s opening three-episode salvo, Andor continues to be the bright centre of the Star Wars universe.
Written by series creator Tony Gilroy and directed by Ariel Kleiman, the opening arc of season two picks up one year after the Ferrix riot and re-introduces us to a rebellion in disarray. Superstar spy Cassian (Diego Luna) is on a mission to steal an experimental TIE Avenger – a thrilling opening sequence that efficiently establishes his increased skill and commitment to the cause – only to be waylaid by rebel infighting. Cassian’s fellow Ferrix escapees, including mechanic Bix (Adria Arjona) and delightful droid B2EMO, are hiding out on an agricultural planet where an Imperial supply census threatens to expose them. And on Chandrila Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly) must deal with an errant ally during her daughter’s wedding. The common theme is that the rebels aren’t an alliance so much as a loosely associated collection of freedom fighters.
The Empire has no such organisational issues and is in the planning stages of a final solution – a programme led by Rogue One’s caped bureaucrat Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn). Echoing the Wannsee Conference in Nazi Germany, the secretive Imperial summit is a chilling account of the banality of evil as planetary genocide is matter-of-factly discussed over coffee. That such ideas (as well as a surprisingly raw assault in episode three that deserves a trigger warning) continue to be explored in a universe that has traditionally targeted younger viewers continues to be one of Andor’s greatest strengths.
Likewise, Gilroy’s writing is up there with the best of the prestige TV era, turning even moments of functional exposition into memorable exchanges that speak to the core of the characters and the show’s themes – namely the cost of resistance. These episodes don’t represent Andor at its very best: the infighting rebels that Cassian has a run-in with feel too buffoonish for this corner of the galaxy, there’s an inordinate amount of time spent on world-building rituals during the wedding, and new composer Brandon Roberts has yet to hit the highs of Nicholas Britell’s season one score. But thank the twin suns there are nine episodes still to go: Star Wars this good should be savoured. (Jordan Farley)
THE STUFF OF LEGENDS: The TIE Avenger first appeared in the classic 1994 PC Game Star Wars: TIE Fighter. A full-scale, practical Avenger was built for the show.
The Friend
(15, in cinemas now)
⭐⭐⭐☆☆
When her mentor-slash-best pal Walter (Bill Murray) dies, writer Iris (Naomi Watts) becomes reluctant custodian of his beloved Great Dane, Apollo. Too big for cat person Iris’ (still sizeable) New York apartment, the mournful dog annexes her bed and trashes the place while she’s out. Can the pair possibly help each other through their mutual grief and discover kinship?
The answer to that is as big and obvious as Apollo himself, but The Friend (adapted from Sigrid Nunez’s 2018 novel) isn’t as straightforward, shameless or slapstick-y as some shaggy-dog stories. Though the two-hour length feels indulgent for such a low-incident plot, filmmakers Scott McGehee and David Siegel (Montana Story, What Maisie Knew) use the time to churn up a fair degree of emotional complexity. Murray has a small role but his thrice-married character looms large, as the grey areas in his relationship with Watts’ Iris gradually emerge. Issues of mortality and mental health (trigger warning: Walter took his own life) are explored in thoughtful, gentle fashion. Perhaps too gentle, given the most the film ultimately offers is comfort rather than catharsis - although Watts, excellent throughout, really shines in a baggage-unpacking therapy scene.
Drifting in and out of the narrative, other notable names - like Carla Gugino, Constance Wu and Ann Dowd - are given less chance to flex their talent. Though perhaps the biggest misstep is the pervasive use of voiceover, which at best feels on-the-nose and at worst adds a cringe factor the film otherwise manages to avoid. (Matthew Leyland)
APOLLO LEAD: Oftentimes movie pets are played by multiple animals, but not Apollo, whose expressive turn was solely captured by Bing, an award-winning Great Dane who, of course, has his own Insta account.
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