We don't really hear much out of Ben Affleck these days and I wonder why that is. Perhaps it is because he is comfortable enough that he doesn't really have to work and maybe someone should tell his buddy Matt Damon that this is something that is allowed.
I had forgotten about the first film when the news about the 2nd installment dropped, but I did remember enjoying the first one even though I didn't remember why.
In the 2nd installment we get kind of a similar vibe but they dig in more to enhance the story. I think most people will enjoy it as it is easy watching with a mostly easy to follow story.
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If you haven't seen the first one you don't need to have seen it to enjoy this one. I suppose a little bit of information would be left out as to WHY Christian Wolf (Affleck) is as connected as he is, but that is summarized pretty quickly as he fast-talks his way through any situation he is in pretty early on in the movie.
Basically, he is a guy that can fix anything, like so many other action stars are but unlike say Jason Statham in any movie he is in, this particular fixer isn't a unwilling participant who just happens to be a bad-ass.
Christian's abilities stem from the fact that he is on the spectrum, I believe it is autism, and this isn't focused on in the level of detail that it was in the first installment, but by a sort of montage at the beginning of the film and how he managed to reverse engineer a dating app to get all of the women is a humorous method of showing how once he focuses on something it is going to be figured out, it is just the human interaction side of things that are difficult for Christian.
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I don't want to spoil too much of the story so I'll just say that Christian ends up getting contacted by a straight-laced government employee using rather cryptic information on how to find him. This leads to him getting in contact with her because someone tipped her off about how she needs to "find the accountant" in order to solve something... which at the moment anyway she is not even sure what it is that she is meant to be solving. Due to Christian's unique abilities to do almost anything as long as it doesn't require getting along with other people, he is able to figure out things that normal people, including federal investigators, are simply unable to see.
This is where you kind of need to pay attention because Ben's character talks fast and figures things out faster. If you are in the bathroom or are scrolling on your phone during one of these segments you are going to be very lost once you start paying attention again. This is an action film, but it is more of an intelligent action film than your usual Rock/Statham/Fast and Furious film is.
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One thing that kind of surprised me about this was the fact that I really enjoyed Jon Bernthal's portrayal of "Braxton," who is Christian's brother. Braxton is also on the spectrum to some degree but is significantly better at talking to people than his brother, both of the kind of struggle in normal human interaction situations but Berenthal provides some wonderful comedy moments because he doesn't really seem to have a filter but is more aware of his affliction and how he is not normal and how this can be off-putting to "normies."
They team up and let's just say that they work well together in a lot of ways both in a fictional sense and also the fact that the two actors actually have really good on-screen chemistry. This was surprising to me because I have basically hated Bernthal after The Punisher TV series.
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If you have a sense of humor like my own you are probably going to hear a couple of the lines that Braxton says in the film and want to use it on your friends later. That is always fun to me when this happens and again, it is just so surprising to me that this is coming from Bernthal. I'm gonna have to give that guy another chance... Maybe The Punisher being so terrible wasn't his fault after all.
Should I watch it?
I expected this film to be reasonably entertaining and it was so much more than that to me. Action films are a dime a dozen and I didn't expect a great deal from this. I stayed interested the entire film and honestly, this is one of the better action films that I have seen so far this year.
It isn't often that I can see an action film and never look at my phone and never get bored. I even PAUSED it while I went to the bathroom and this is very rare for me when watching action movies.
So yes, I think that this one is something that almost anyone will enjoy and I highly recommend it. It's kind of strange to me that despite almost universal praise that after marketing this film lost money. I guess people just don't really go to theaters anymore. They'l break even on streaming I would imagine.
The only legal way to watch this at the moment is to see it in theaters or with an Amazon Prime membership