The IRS’s favorite perpetual problem child, Nicolas Cage, has new movie, Drive Angry and it is quite the testosterony mishmash of explosions and gunfight sex (NSFW). The baddie in this particular film is played by William Fichtner whose face you probably recognize but had no idea what his name was. His character is simply known as “The Accountant” who, as far as we can tell, is a bag man of sorts for the Prince of Darkness.
Now – “The Accountant.” Why would a filmmaker soil your honorable profession by assigning a demon with that label? Is it a bad parental memory? Jaded by an unpleasant tax return experience? No, it’s simply the tendency of accountants to be run a tight ship and director of Drive Angrybe insanely anal:
We imagine Hell as probably as very well done. With all our experiences with bureaucracy we thought that, yeah [The Accountant] would sort of make sense. Bureaucracy can be really vicious and of course we need somebody who would have that attention to detail. Who made sure the checks and balances were met and that every single column lined up. And if it was that person that came after you, you would be majorly fucked. We talked about how you’d already seen the hunter from hell and we thought nah, it’s a guy in a suit. It’s a guy who looks like a lawyer, but isn’t. It’s a guy who looks at numbers and is indifferent to your plight. You can’t negotiate with him because to him it’s just about making sure everything adds up. If you’re against the books, then he will make sure to correct it.
Drive Angry director explains why Satan’s right-hand man is an accountant [io9]
