User Reviews

I happened to see it decades ago, it was a rainy day, I was scrolling around obscure cable channels and got hooked on it, "a clicker from Edgemear" line still makes me smile. I tell friends about it and they think I'm nuts, I'm glad I found these reviews, they give me a happy face!

In "The Accountant," Alfred Molina plays a tall chartered accountant (at 6'3", he towers over most of the other actors in the movie) in Edgware, London who is busy planning for his son's bar mitzvah, worrying about clients who either pass away or dump him because he is too honest and trying to help a friend collect a business debt. This last matter, the 3,000 pounds owed to his friend, a paper merchant, gets Molina's character into all sorts of trouble, since he becomes a target of criminals. This seldom shown movie (I saw it on BBC America) is loaded with idiosyncratic details, including information on British tax dodges that may or may not be authentic. After seeing this movie, you have to wonder if the author John Grisham ever saw it, considering the main story line of "The Accountant." If this movie ever shows up again on BBC America or anywhere else, it is recommended viewing.

Addendum (19 January 2010): Memories can fade as the decades pass, which may explain why other reviewers of this movie incorrectly describe it as an all-out comedy. I just saw this movie again from the DVD-R copy I have of the 90 minute BBC America showing of the movie. Molina does play an ethnic sort, a harried Jewish accountant. But the movie starts off with his complaining how he his clients are dying off, after one more client dies and he says he may stop by the funeral service. Then there his friend who drops by unannounced, worried that he will lose his business because a customer is refusing to pay for a big order. Life goes on, Molina dodging traffic to get to the restaurant, his secretary chatting on the phone with a personal call, but in the background you sometimes hear that music accompanying the action, foreboding music. There is an intentional grim undertone to this movie that the other reviewers have either missed or ignored.

The makers of this movie were craftsmen who were showing the transient nature of life, a sort of video "vanitas" type painting. The Rolls-Royce the accountant drives and his big house seen at the movie's end show his prosperity, functioning in the same way as the fine clothes won by the two figures in Hans Holbein the Younger's painting, The Ambassadors. From the other reviews, it seems that all the efforts the movie makers made here to create "art" were for naught. Alfred Molina's portrayal of the accountant overpowers all the obvious details in this movie that show it is about the intersection of life and death, that The Accountant is a grim story, not a comedy.

like the reviewer above who still remembers this after 18 years, same goes for me. In fact, I've followed the career of Molina ever since this came out. I too haven't seen this since 1989 but at the time,loved this made for TV drama. I was living in north London at the time and most of the shots were filmed in actual places in edgware like cafes, shops that I had been in and are still there now. This was a very funny drama which got all the quirks right like the Tottenham Hotspur football team invited to the barmitzvah (a very common event then as players were not super rich as they are now so they still needed to make guest appearances and its a well known fact many north London jews support tottenham). Hopefully this'll be shown on BBC America this side of the pond but if anyone has a copy, email me! I'd love to watch this again and reminisce.

'The Accountant' is a great example of the finest of British black humour. It features the busy Alfred Molina in (what I think is) his best role... a mild mannered Jewish family man who gets sucked into the criminal Mafia underworld.

Lional Ellerman is an honest and hard working accountant. He's being taken advantage of by both his clients and his employees... but he's no fool and allows these things to happen to him.

He eventually gets inadvertently drawn into the Mafia lifestyle and is even a little star-struck by it as he starts organizing their accounts. While all this is going on, he's busy trying to organize his home life which includes his son's Bar Mitzvah.

It's a terrific story with a lot of heart combined with dark comedy, despite the rather sinister double life that the accountant is drawn into. Although the end scene is a mite disturbing, it is inevitably appropriate.

The scenes of the actual Bar Mitzvah are hilarious, but you always sense that there's something disturbing going on beneath the surface.

Frustratingly the title image for this TV movie is incorrect and it isnt even mentioned in Molina's IMDb profile.

If you like 'The Accountant', check out another clever dark British comedy 'Sleepers' from 1991.

I saw this when it first went out on the BBC in the UK i.e. 1989. That I can still remember it after all these years (18!) says a lot. This is a classic British made for TV comedy film very much in the classic English comedy tradition. And it is indeed very funny in a dark bleak sense.

Contains the classic line "the whole point of a cash deal is that you get the cash". If it every comes on TV then you really should take the time to watch it. As far as I know i has not been repeated in the UK since the original showing but we can live in hope that this situation will be rectified at some point!

It is tragic that this tremendous black comedy has never been seen again I have never seen it since 1989 It has haunted me since then The BBC should be ashamed. Alfred Molina was superb. He was unknown to me when the film was shown but how he has flourished The story was intriguing It was adult in the true sense of the word The ending was menacing but not definitive A diary entry from 1989 has prompted me to search for a DVD I bet there isn't one!This TV film prompts the question as to how many other Screen One gems have been lost or forgotten. It also means that other films that I have not seen from the series should be looked for.

edgeware, above is right. This is not a comedy. I was living in Hampstead and saw this and also have been following Molina ever since. Strangely, Molina's bio on IMDb does not contain a reference to this movie.

To confirm that it is not a comedy, think of the ending. Molina looks down Edgeware Rd and sees a garbage lorry coming directly at him. He had completed his work doing the accounting for a mob character and Molina clearly knew too much.

I am a yank, loved going to Golder's Green for bagels, and found Molina absolutely riveting.

I am going to see if there is a US copy and will report if there is.

This movie has an excellent story line which is played out compellingly well. Viewers are quickly bound into the plot, and should hunker down and be ready to spend a couple of hours doubled up with laughter. It starts out with funny twists and turns of fate befalling a very ordinary and likable accountant played by Molina, and gradually rolls its way into complete hilarious bizarre-dom. However weird the twists of fate may be, nonetheless it is so well played that the plot seems completely believable the whole way through.

Molina is great in this movie as usual, and the rest of the cast hold up fully to the spotlight he creates. I can't imagine why we have not seen this movie repeated more, as it is so good.