First of all this trailer looks amazing. It really glamorizes the role of an accountant. I think this movie will singlehandedly increase enrollment in accounting programs at many schools.

I will be more pumped when I tell people that I’m an accountant after watching this trailer. 

Let’s analyze the trailer. 

The first scene starts out under an isolated freeway overpass with a young accountant staring at the back of his dad’s car window with the monotonous drone of the windshield wipers.

Maybe the wipers are meant to represent the monotonous life of an accountant?

His dad says the following:

You’re different, sooner or later different scares people. You think if you don’t fight back then maybe they’ll like ya. Stop picking on ya stop calling ya freak. Victim or not make a decision!

This is great scene as it provides some background as to how Ben Affleck became an accountant in this movie. He didn’t fit in and over-analyzed everything.

Accountants are usually people that over-analyze and don’t fit in because they view things from an analytical lense. Most of society just doesn’t operate this way. 

The stare that the kid in this movie has is not one of a normal kid that is afraid of life. Nope. He is sitting there and weighing the cost/benefit of listening to his dad complain about him being sensitive versus getting the crap beat out of him by a group of bullies. Spoiler alert — he chooses the tougher road.

Situations like these are similar to what people in the big 4 accounting firms have to analyze. Do I ask the client or a partner a stupid question or do I risk missing an important piece of data that I might need at a later point. 

The next scene of the trailer cuts to more of the young accountants life. 

Your son is a remarkable young man. It wouldn’t surprise me if he has more in common with Einstein, Mozart and Picasso than he has with us. He has highly advanced cognitive skills–the obsessive personality.

In this scene, Christian Wolff’s parents utilize the help of a doctor to analyze what’s wrong with their son. This doctor is saying that the parents don’t know what to do with the accountant because he is much smarter than the average kid. The parents obviously don’t do a good job of embracing his quirks because we already saw that his dad pushed him to use violence as a result of his uniqueness. 

This scene also plays into the ego of many accountants. We all think we are bright and that we are different. Being compared to some of the most famous geniuses plays right into how many accountants feel about themselves. 

This scene also shows how the accountant is routine-oriented and OCD.

The accountant is puts together a puzzle, has a box of identical markers, and uses those markers to map out the financial status of one of his clients. The accountant only has 3 piece of silverware. A fork a spoon and a knife. All of these tidbits, show that the accountant keeps his life basic and routine-oriented so that he can focus on his work.

This definitely could be many big 4 accountants as well. As a big 4 accountant you have to spend so much time at work that you become a master at shaving off the hours of your personal life. 

This scene portrays the life of an accountant pretty well. Most accountants have meticulous attention to detail and have many routines that might resemble OCD behaviors. 

The next scene takes a look at the darker side of the accountant:

Can our son lead a normal life? Define normal. Maybe he’s capable of much more than we know. Say you’re the head of the Sinoloa cartel. Who can you trust to track your stolen cash? He’s capable of coming in cold uncooking years of books and getting out alive. Imagine the secrets this guy has. Who are you?

In that scene the accountant is seen living in a trailer filled with ammo, fighting federal agents of some sort and using a sniper rifle. The federal agent tracking the accountant speaks about the accountant working for the cartel. This is where we see that he is no normal accountant. He’s obviously involved with money laundering for a drug cartel.

But Christian Wolff is not just involved in money laundering. He’s taken a more proactive involvement in the drug trade. Maybe he’s not just an accountant. This could stem from his days as a young child fighting bullies when his dad didn’t think he was capable of it. 

In this scene, I also like the fact that he has a poster of emoticons on the back of his closet door. He probably has that their to remind him to feel emotions. This displays the stereotype that most accountants are dull and don’t have feelings. I thought that was a nice little dig. 

The trailer ends with Ben Affleck blowing on his fingers as we hear the following quote.

Can our son lead a normal life? Define normal

We know Ben Affleck will not lead the normal accountant’s life in this movie for sure. We’ll have to wait for the movie release date on October 14, 2016 to see what Christian Wolff is actually involved in.

Make sure to forward this clip to all your friends and say that it provides a look into your life. 

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