Cinemazlowski Triple review: 'Keeping Up with the Joneses', 'The Accountant', and 'Jack Reacher 2'

Oct 21, 2016

There have been countless movies about hit men, as well as umpteen versions of spy comedies throughout the history of Hollywood. In an era when superhero movies and sequels are already glutting multiplexes, the arrival of the films "Keeping Up with the Joneses" and "The Accountant" might seem cause for more despair for moviegoers hoping for original ideas.

Thankfully, both films manage to be entertaining because they take these potentially hackneyed premises and put enough thought, energy and spin on them to make them entertaining.

"Joneses" is the spy comedy, telling the story of a bland suburban couple named Jeff and Karen Gaffney (Zach Galifianakis and Isla Fisher) whose lives are turned upside down with the arrival of their mysterious new neighbors, Tim and Natalie Jones (Jon Hamm and Gal Gadot).

Jeff and Karen have just packed their kids off to summer camp and initially fantasize about having two weeks of unbridled passion and partying together, but instead they wind up watching "The Good Wife" on Netflix. Jeff is a thoroughly boring human resources manager for a software company that manages flash drives filled with classified information for the CIA, but he has unwittingly drawn the attention of the Joneses because someone is using his work computer to pass vital secrets to an evildoer named Scorpion.

When Karen suspects the Joneses aren't who they say they are, Jeff initially scoffs at her for having a wild imagination and sticking her nose where it doesn't belong. But when they discover the Joneses have bugged their house via a gift they gave them, Jeff tries to find out what's going on and winds up getting caught in the middle of an ever-crazier CIA operation.

Has this plot been done before? Yes, and sometimes in terrific fashion in movies like the 1979 classic "The In-Laws" and the Brad Pitt-Angelina Jolie action romp "Mr. and Mrs. Smith." Add this one to the list of successful endeavors, as director Greg Mottola ("Superbad") nails both character-driven comedy and impressive action sequences, with hilarious performances by the lead foursome that play perfectly to their respective strengths.

There's a refreshing near-absence of profanity in the movie, with one F word, and about five uses of God's or Jesus' name in vain in the entire movie. The violence is standard action-comedy level, with fist fights, shootouts, car chases and crashes but no blood, though one villain has a knife thrown into his throat in comic fashion.

The most potentially offensive element are several sexual innuendoes, a couple of which are pretty descriptive though brief. And there's a scene in which Mrs. Jones talks to Karen while wearing skimpy lingerie next to a department store dressing room, and encourages Karen to buy a lingerie combo that is seen later at a comic moment with Jeff. The lingerie leaves Mrs. Jones quite scantily clad and the scene lasts two or three minutes. Finally, the two wives kiss with false passion for a moment to distract the villains at a key point in the film.

Overall, though, the movie has a positive attitude towards marriage and keeping the spark alive between long time spouses, and the dirty jokes are a minimal part of the total film.

"Joneses" may be mindless entertainment, but in this depressing and contentious election year, we could all use exactly that.

Meanwhile, "The Accountant" offers Ben Affleck as Christian Wolff, who suffers from the high-functioning autistic disorder known as Asperger's syndrome. Wolff appears to be a mild-mannered tax master with a strip-mall office in suburbia, yet masks a double life doing audits for some of the world's most dangerous criminals.

Hired as a consultant to find out why $61 million has gone missing from a robotics firm, he manages to break down 15 years of tax paperwork in a single night and winds up wowing a young staff accountant named Dana (Anna Kendrick). But at the same time, a veteran US Treasury agent named Ray King (J.K. Simmons) who's on the edge of retirement wants to know who Wolff is, because he's seen him for years in countless photos with some of the world's worst people.

King blackmails an FBI analyst with a shady past named Marybeth Medina (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) into investigating Wolff, and the ensuing cat and mouse game grows to involve a nonstop and intriguing series of twists. The actual motivations of Wolff, and why and how he learned to become an ace assassin, form a fascinating tale, and the riveting, multifaceted script by Bill Dubuque also provides plenty of affecting backstory for Dana, Ray and Marybeth as well.

Dubuque's script hits on multiple levels, working not only as an action movie and a mystery, but also as a deeply human and multilayered tale of four people whose lives come together via their troubled pasts and hopes to become better human beings. It's also an intriguing look at the world through the eyes of an autistic man and handles Wolff's character with great sensitivity, drawing out of Affleck what may be his best performance yet.

The movie features several intense hand to hand combat fights and shootings, with pools of blood visible at a couple of crime scenes. The lead character engages in a somewhat disturbing ritual in a couple scenes of the movie where he blasts loud music and flashes strobe lights in his bedroom while whacking his shins with a metal pipe, all in the name of "toughening up." Finally, there are about 25 F words and another 15 or so lighter obscenities and seven uses of God's or Jesus' name in vain. Overall, it shouldn't be problematic for most adult viewers.

Add it all up, and "The Accountant" offers plenty of bang for the buck, and could very well tally up some Oscar votes.

Finally, Tom Cruise returns as the title character in "Jack Reacher: Never Go Back", the second installment in yet another series of action films by one of the world's biggest stars. Cruise has lost his box-office mojo a bit in the last few years, outside of the "Mission: Impossible" series, and while hopes are high for his starring role in a "Mummy" reboot next year, it's unclear how this sequel to one of his most mediocre movies got made.

Cruise is fine as Reacher, bringing his steely charisma and charming way with one-liners to the fore as the ex-military man who now drifts around the country helping people vigilante-style. This time around, he's trying to clear the name of a military officer acquaintance named Susan Turner (Cobie Smulders), who is on lockdown on false charages after two military investigators she sent to Afghanistan were killed by US bullets.

The dead officers were trying to find out where leftover weapons in the Afghan war effort are disappearing to. Reacher realizes that assassins are on their way to kill Turner, and with those officers dead and an ever-growing conspiracy becoming ever more apparent, Reacher busts Turner out of her cell and the two go on the run to solve the mystery.

One added element that works to a point is that Reacher also has to look out for a 15 year old girl named Samantha, who believes Jack is the father she never met. He initially follows her to get a sense of her, but then realizes the assassins are also out to kill her. Her flight with Jack and Susan gives the film a needed dose of both humor and heart.

Overall, though, the new "Reacher" is better than its predecessor, but still amounts to nonstop chases and fighting throughout much of the film. There are numerous plot holes in the script, and ultimately this feels average enough to be something an action buff or Cruise fan might enjoy seeing once, but would likely (you guessed it) never go back.

To give it credit, foul language is barely noticeable if present at all in the film, and there's no sex or nudity. The action fits the PG-13 rating, so the movie overall is fine for teens and adults.