"When faced with a problem you do not understand,
do any part of it you do understand; then look at it again."
~(Robert A. Heinlein - "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress")

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Friday, November 20, 2015

The Accountant

"Since the birth of time, humanity has endeavored to restrain evil men in prisons. But since Cain fled the murder of his brother, evil men have fled the walls of punishment.

"So, it doesn't matter if you're a badass motherf****r on the run, because you think you're better than everyone else, and somehow entitled to do what you gotta do.


"No. Because, you see, badass motherf****rs are never fast enough. In the end, they will all be accounted for."

~The Accountant (Satan's Accountant) in the movie Drive Angry (2011) ...


... a movie I truly love, but am hesitant to recommend.  You see, it is R rated for a reason. There are scenes in it that pretty well qualify as porn. But if you can get past that, you'll find that The Accountant more than makes up for that.


John Milton (Nicholas Cage) escapes from Hell (in a black Buick Riviera) to go after some men from a Satanic cult, who have murdered his daughter and taken that daughter's baby to be used as a human sacrifice when the moon is full in a few days.


Milton is pursued by The Accountant (William Fichtner, dressed like a lawyer of coarse :-) who, while never forgetting his primary mission to bring Milton back, decides to help him recover his grandchild when he learns what the cult has done and is preparing to do.




In the third scene of that clip, two young stoners happen upon a crashed car and wonder if anyone is inside, when the door flies off (kicked by The Accountant who was inside) and knocks down the Second Stoner. That scene starts when The Accountant emerges ...


First Stoner:  "Jesus!"

The Accountant:  "-Carpenter. And despite what you've heard, prefers short hair."
Second Stoner:  "You almost fuck**g killed me, man."
The Accountant:  "Not even close. I won't see you again until you're 73."
(to the First Stoner):  "You, I'll see in three months."

It's rare for Nicholas Cage to be upstaged in a movie he's starring in (the best example I can think of being "The Rock", in which he's partnered with Sean Connery) but Fichtner so owns this movie that when he's on scene, the other actors might as well have stayed home.


Now, in truth, WITHOUT Fichtner, I would have classed this movie as VERY mediocre.  But it DOES have him, and that makes all the difference in the world. 


I first saw him in "Heat", where he's mob boss Roger Van Zant, who was the owner of a lot of bearer bonds stolen by Neil McCauley (Robert de Niro). When a deal is made for him to buy them back for an amount that would be covered by insurance money, he double crosses McCauley with an ambush (figuring that the LAST thing he needs is for punks on the street to think it Ok to steal from him). After surviving that ambush, McCauley phones Van Zant to tell him, "Forget the money."

van Zant: "Forget it?!!!  What are you doing?"
McCauley: "What am I doing?  I'm talking to an empty phone.  Because there'a dead man on the other end of it."

Fichtner has been in "Contact", "The Perfect Storm", and many others, and always first class.


But, he appears to be having a real blast playing The Accountant, and admits to exactly that in one of the interviews on the DVD.  You could make a really fine movie just devoted to this character, and I suspect he would be just fine with that.

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