Film reviews: The Accountant 2 | Den of Thieves: Pantera | Julie Keeps Quiet

Nine years after Ben Affleck’s first outing as neurodivergent superhero Christian Wolff in The Accountant, the sequel offers undemanding blockbuster fun, writes Alistair Harkness

The Accountant 2 (15) ★★★

Den of Thieves: Pantera (15) ★★

Julie Keeps Quiet (12A) ★★★★

A moderate hit for Ben Affleck when it was first released in 2016, The Accountant was a fairly disposable action thriller with an entertainingly goofy premise: an autistic forensic accountant (Affleck) with a shady roster of clients turns out also to have been trained by his bully of a father since childhood to become a lethal killing machine. Playing like a cross between Rain Man and Batman, the oddball film embraced both comparisons with some blatant nods to the former and Affleck’s casting bringing to mind the latter (he played the Dark Knight in that year’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice).

Though a sequel didn’t necessarily seem like it was on the books, the imaginatively titled The Accountant 2 suggests someone finally did an audit and realised there was enough of an audience to warrant one. Thus, here we are, nine years later, with a film that feels an unerring need to expand whatever garbled mythology was in place last time round.

The Accountant 2 | Warrick Page/Prime

Not that it really matters if you don’t remember all that much about that first film; returning director Gavin O’Connor knows this is supposed to be undemanding blockbuster fun and that’s what he sets out to deliver.

With no Anna Kendrick to bounce off this time, Affleck’s neurodivergent superhero Christian Wolff finds himself re-teaming instead with Braxton (Jon Bernthal), the estranged hitman brother he briefly reconnected with during one of the first film’s convoluted twists. It’s Bernthal who helps The Accountant 2 fulfil its full dumb-fun potential as a hyper-violent action caper. Finding just the right level of tongue-in-cheek masculine energy, he offsets both Affleck’s more pronounced comedy schtick (which goes a little more Forrest Gump in places), as well the film’s own errant, barely comprehensible plot, which involves the murder of a former colleague, the search for a missing migrant teenager, an investigation into a human trafficking ring, and a mysterious female assassin (Daniella Pineda) whose gradually returning memory results in her leaving a trail of violence in her wake while she pieces together who she really is.

An expanded role for Cynthia Addai-Robinson (as a financial crimes agent working in semi-cahoots with Affleck’s character) and a cameo for JK Simmons (as her now-retired boss) adds yet more continuity with the first film. But if the mangled plot sometimes gets in the way, the oddly endearing sight of Affleck and Bernthal’s mismatched siblings bonding through proficiently executed violence — of which, mercifully, there’s plenty — makes it very watchable.

Gerard Butler & O'Shea Jackson Jr in Den of Thieves 2: Pantera | Signature Entertainment

If The Accountant 2 shows the huge difference casting can make to a fairly nonsensical film, Den of Thieves: Pantera reinforces the point in a much more negative way. A sequel to 2018’s Gerard Butler-starring crime movie of almost the same name, this straight-to-streaming follow-up sees Butler reprising one of his least charismatic characters: the hard-bitten, toss-the-rule-book-out cop Nicholas ‘Big Nick’ O’Brian, whose dogged obsession with nailing O’Shea Jackson’s arch criminal Donnie Wilson for getting away with robbing the Federal Reserve in the first film is less Al Pacino in Heat (the film it thinks it is) and more like a gone-to-seed Paul Walker in the first Fast and Furious film. The sequel certainly echoes that film’s plot (which was itself ripped-off from Kathryn Bigelow’s action classic Point Break). In this one, the newly divorced Big Nick crosses over to the bad-guy side and finds it much more fun after pursuing Donnie to the South of France and discovering him planning a diamond heist with a gang of well-financed Euro-criminals known as the Panthers.

The resulting film is as unmoored as Butler’s frequently sozzled character, with far too many tedious and indulgent bonding scenes between Butler and Jackson drawing the running time out to a punishing 145 minutes instead of getting down to business with actual action. It’s a shame because Butler’s particular brand of machismo has found some decent vehicles in recent years with the disaster movie Greenland and the entertaining Plane. Alas, this exposes his limits more than his strengths.

Set against the backdrop of an elite Belgian tennis academy, Julie Keeps Quiet serves up a coolly internalised portrait of a young prodigy as she navigates how best to handle a brewing sexual abuse scandal involving her beloved coach Jeremy after another player takes her own life.

Co-writer/director Leonardo Van Dijl keeps his camera close on the titular Julie at all times so he can subtly sketch out — on the face of excellent newcomer Tessa Van den Broeck — the emotional rollercoaster Julie is quietly enduring as she chooses to say nothing about her own experiences with her coach after the truth of his suspension starts leaking out.

There are no big melodramatic fireworks here; instead, with masterful precision, the film tracks how Julie’s diligence and determination on the court gradually reveals her strength of character off it.

The Accountant 2 and Julie Keeps Quiet are in cinemas from 25 April; Den of Thieves 2: Pantera is streaming exclusively on Prime Video from 25 April .