Tag Archives: the accountant

A Movie Observation – Older Men and Younger Women

Hey 3.5 readers.

I’ve seen three movies this week.

I know. I have no life.

But here’s what I noticed:

The Accountant – Ben Affleck and Anna Kendrick – not sure of the age difference, Anna is in her thirties and Ben’s in his forties so I’ll guess maybe ten years or so.

Jack Reacher: Never Go Back – Cobie Smulders is in her thirties. Tom Cruise is in his fifties.

Inferno – Tom Cruise is sixty and Felicity Jones is in her early thirties.

Older men. Younger women.

I’ll say from the outset, in all three of these movies, the men and the women don’t boink.

Oh sorry. SPOILER ALERT- they don’t boink.  Sorry, I ruined it if you were hoping they’d boink.

There’s some minor flirting between Cobie and Tom, a suggestion maybe they’d hook up in a relationship if their lives weren’t so chaotic.

Ben’s character is autistic and troubled and probably wouldn’t know what to do with a woman though he finds some happiness just from talking to and opening up to Anna’s character.

Robert Langdon and Dr. Sienna Brooks have nothing more than a professional relationship. He’s a professor in trouble and she’s a doctor who decides to save him. There’s no love interest and SPOILER ALERT Langdon pines, in a first for Hollywood, for a woman his own age.

But its something I noticed just because it happened in three movies in a row.  Maybe its something. Maybe its nothing.

These movies probably aren’t even good subjects for the conversation since the men and the women only work together.

But it led me to a question – does art imitate life? Does life imitate art?

I’m speaking generally here but here’s my understanding of men and women:

  • Men seek pretty women because they make them feel important and powerful, life if they walk into a room with a hot babe on their arm them everyone must think that dude is awesome because he has snagged a hot babe.
  • Women aren’t slouches when it comes to wanting a hot dude but they also want a rich, successful dude.
  • Attractiveness is a young person’s game and success takes so much time that it is an old person’s game, ergo, you end up seeing a lot of older men with younger women on screen because Hollywood suits decide this is what people want. The older, successful men want that arm candy. The women want a man that doesn’t live with his mother and can pick up a check.

Am I right?  Am I wrong?

I don’t know.

I could be reading too much into it.

Much of it also involves the plot.

For example (just assume SPOILERS for all three movies and don’t read on if you don’t want them spoiled) in the Accountant, Anna plays a junior accountant who finds a discrepancy in the books that leads to a major conspiracy being uncovered.

So in that case, Ben as the more experienced accountant (and professional assassin in his spare time) has to help the younger accountant out of the jam she finds herself in.

OK.  It fits the plot.

And then in Jack Reacher you have a female Navy Major Turner who’s been through some shit and the ex-military policeman Jack who has been through some shit and if you don’t factor in their ages and consider that Tom is better preserved that most fifty year olds so perhaps he’s playing a younger character…yeah ok, the idea of those two ending up together isn’t that out of the ordinary.

And as previously mentioned, Langdon, like Hanks, is, well its rude to say old but older and Dr. Sienna is younger but the idea of a romance is never broached so I suppose if you start making rules then you could never have a movie where an older and a younger person team up against evil.

I have no idea where I’m going with this other than I wonder if I’m right or wrong – do women prefer old men who are successful and are willing to over look their saggy, wrinkly balls as long as they are loaded?

Do men prefer attractive women as long as they…nah I’m not going to finish that question we know the answer.

But I’d again reiterate I don’t think there’s a plethora of women out there who prefer ugly men and I should know because I am super ugly and I don’t think that I’d suddenly get a lot of babes if I were to become super rich and super successful because the women wouldn’t be able to get over my ugliness.

Oh and also Video Game Rack Fighter has sunk her hooks into me and she is a keeper as she ignores my ugliness and lack of success.

Discuss, 3.5 readers.

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Movie Review – The Accountant (2016)

Guns! Thrills! Chills!

Math?!

1+1=2 and 2×2=stick around for this review, 3.5 readers.

(FYI 1.75 X 2=3.5)

BQB here with a review of The Accountant.

You know 3.5, ever since you all came into my life, I spend most of my time watching movies thinking about how I’m going to explain what I’m seeing on the screen to all 3.5 of you.

This movie was so complicated that it took some serious thinking on my part, but here goes:

Ben Affleck stars as Christian Wolff, a highly functioning autistic man who, by day, appears to be a mild mannered, run of the mill accountant.

However, he’s much more than that.  Although socially awkward, obsessive compulsive, and unable to connect with people, he utilizes his Rainman-esque ability with numbers to perform forensic accounting for all manner of international criminals, gangsters, what have you.

Because this profession is dangerous, he is often called upon to use his genius mind to kill all sorts of enemies.

Ironically, when he’s hired for a legit gig to help a robotics company locate some missing money, things get very dangerous as he ends up having to save junior accountant trainee/discrepancy in the books finder Dana Cummings (the ever adorable Anna Kendrick) from a dastardly hitman played by Jon Bernthal (formerly Shane of The Walking Dead.)

Meanwhile, treasury agent Ray King (J.K. Simmons) has been tracking “the Accountant” for years.  With an impending retirement looming over his head, he recruits treasury analyst Marybeth Medina (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) to figure out who this vile bookkeeper is.

The plot is very complex with many moving parts.  Many, many threads are exposed and you spend most of the film waiting for them to pay off and fear not, for eventually they do.  Whoever wrote this must have had a giant flowchart to keep track of it all.

This was a different kind of role for the Benster.  Though he has played dark and brooding before (The Town) this character is altogether different.  At times we get to see glimpses of goodness in this murderous bean counter, mostly brought out through his interactions with Anna.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy, but bring a pencil, a notebook, and a slide rule to keep track of everything.  I’m still not sure myself.

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