why would Lamar hire Wolff? - The Accountant (2016) Discussion

[–] Geoff1963 8 years ago

He didn't, his sister did ; and she wasn't in on the fraud, hence the trepanning.

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[–] kyizen 8 years ago

Exactly, Lamar was a bad bad guy. Basically he was stealing money from his company to reinvest in it. Harmless, unless it didn't go his way. First was the invester guy who was shorting the stock lowing the value. Second was he has his best friend as CFO who was horrible at numbers and didn't see what was going on He has him killed and made him the fault guy. His sister hired the accountant and then Lamar had her killed before she can speak to him.

So yeah he was giving a speech at the end about the greater good and robotics helping people but the accountant shut him up real good.

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[–] Geoff1963 8 years ago

It would be rather like a serial rapist in a country which bans abortion ; saying that he is merely ensuring that his strong moral principles are passed down to the next generation.

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[–] Geoff1963 8 years ago

In Cliffhanger, John Lithgow shoots his female pilot ; because then he is the only who can fly the helicopter, and the others have to get him the money. He explains this as, "Love means making sacrifices".

He could instead have told the female pilot that he was bequeathing her the money, for a better life, before shooting himself.

Funny how some people always choose the moral path which is best for them.

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[–] halomaniac88 (1736) 5 years ago

good point

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[–] Geoff1963 8 years ago

Remember how Lamar looked a bit uncomfortable when he went to meet Chris, then seemed all friendly.

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[–] Geoff1963 8 years ago

Sorry, I've watched it 3 times ; and each time manage to understand it a bit better. First time was just too intense to take it all in.

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[–] abetkasonk 8 years ago

yes! why Lamar hire someone that can tell the truth about the fraud that he made?

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[–] cabbageboy316 8 years ago

So much about this was never entirely clear to me. I was never entirely sure who hired The Accountant in the first place, but figured Lithgow's character had to sign off on it to some extent. In fact this was so weird and baffling I had to ask near the end "So....is John Lithgow the heel in this movie?" I honestly couldn't 100% get it was he who was stealing from himself, or the sister, or his associate.

I actually liked this movie but it was so swerve and plot twist happy that I wondered if M. Night Shyamalan was somehow involved. The twist with Jon Bernthal's character was obvious to anyone with half a brain, so there was no point in this being a goofy plot twist. Just tell us early on who he is and who he is working for so that we know what is going on and can follow the plot.

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[–] RickSPI 8 years ago

I'd also have to watch it again (or more) to get some of these things as well, hopefully someone will chime in before the forum goes away. I didn't really get the brother thing until it was revealed, I guess 1/2 my brain was occupied with other things ... 😳

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[–] Migoi 8 years ago

Lamar: Why in God's name did I ever hire you?

Accountant: To leak-proof your books. Dana found a mistake and you wanted to be sure it was safe to go public.

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[–] ExTechOp (2770) 7 years ago

Classic accountant comeback to "What do these books say?"

"What do you WANT them to say?"

Lamar may have hoped Chris would not only be perceptive but a willing conspirator

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[–] gantz8596 (203) 4 years ago

It was never explained how the hiring and the cover-up happened.

Although Lamar and the accountant's conversation before he kills Lamar tells that he is the one that hired the accountant, there are still some areas that are not clear.

The most probable scenario is that Lamar is running the Crazy Eddie scheme to bloat his company value before the IPO. Not only that, but he also hired the company to put an end to people who tries to short his stock. But then one of the junior accountants found some irregularities in the book. So Lamar decides to hire someone to "leak-proof his book" to see if there any irregularities can be found. So asking his sister to do this, she decides to hire the accountant.

As it turns out, not only did the accountant found something, he actually discovers the whole scheme. This unexpected result forced Lamar to put the blame on his CFO and had him killed. By this point, I think the sister, Rita, is still not convinced and insist on keeping the investigation going, this is why he also had her killed. And the rest of the story goes like in the movie.

One of the problems with this scenario is the fact that when Bax is forcing the CFO to kills himself. He actually mentions that the CFO did actually steal some money.

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[–] ExTechOp (2770) 3 years ago

I didn't think the CFO's "sticky fingers" is a problem. It was legitimate smoke-screen. We're meant to think that was the ONLY reason why he's killed, when the actual reason was to hide Lamar's Panama Pump scheme.

In retrospect, it's easy to imagine Lamar overlooked his best friend's sticky fingers, but told Braxton to use it as a convincer to get the guy to kill himself.

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