There have recently been some questions of what autistic people “can do,” and “The Accountant 2” is here to provide some answers. While Gavin O’Connor’s sequel to his 2016 film “The Accountant,” stretches the limits of realism with its tale of an autistic accountant turned avenging angel, it nevertheless suggests the many things that neurodivergent characters can do — and do well — such as pattern recognition, deductive reasoning, forensic accounting, surveillance, smart home hacking, drone hijacking, line dancing, online dating, hand-to-hand combat, sharpshooting and even repairing a relationship with an estranged family member.

Star Ben Affleck reprises his role as Christian Wolff, an accountant to the stars (of the criminal underworld). Serving a variety of unsavory clients, he can prepare your taxes and/or take out a phalanx of bad guys with the greatest of ease. Christian still lives in his wood-paneled Airstream trailer stuffed with priceless works of art and plenty of weaponry, but he’s relaxed, looser this time around. He’s given up his peculiar self-care routine of rolling his legs with a wooden rod while blasting black metal, and now has an affinity for witty graphic tees and optimizing his dating profile.

He’s looking for love, and his assassin brother, Braxton (Jon Bernthal) is similarly searching for connection — he’s trying to adopt a dog. In the first film, the two brothers were on opposite sides of the conflict, having spent years of no contact after their violent upbringing, trained in the art of war by their strict military father. Now they’re looking for a softer life, but finding it hard to escape.

While the first film kept the brothers apart for the majority of the run time, the most compelling reason for a sequel is to see them together and revel in their odd couple chemistry: Bernthal playing the agitated motormouth Brax, Affleck as the uptight, highly controlled Christian, who is nevertheless experimenting with humor and putting himself out there.

A spritely opening sequence plunges the viewer into the intertwining mysteries that will bedevil our main characters for the duration of the film. Former Treasury Director Ray King (J.K. Simmons) meets with a mysterious woman (Daniella Pineda) in a downtown Los Angeles bar, and when all hell breaks loose, he emerges battered and bruised, before he’s gunned down in the street.

Ray’s former associate, Marybeth Medina (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, sets out to solve Ray’s murder, and in order to do so, she’ll have to solve the mystery he was tracking down himself, involving an El Salvadoran migrant family who have gone missing. She calls in the big guns: Christian, who in turn calls in Braxton, as well as his unique team of techies at the Harbor Neuroscience Center.

The screenplay, once again by Bill Dubuque, is a sprawling, convoluted thing, involving cartels, crooked fishermen, human trafficking, money laundering pizza joints and high-level hit men. It’s fun to try and keep up with the wicked web they spin, which dances just tantalizingly out of reach, taunting the viewer with preposterous plot twists to which you have no choice but to submit.

But the plot is not really the point here, as “The Accountant 2” shines in its scenes of color and personality, particularly between the brothers, though everything does serve a purpose. One might assume that a scene of dancing and brawling at a honky tonk saloon might be just for laughs, but when the bros barge into their final shootout in their trusty steed of a pickup truck, kicking up dust, it’s clear that those Western roots planted earlier are now coming to fruition.

O’Connor’s sturdy action-thriller style feels more elastic and experimental in “The Accountant 2,” as the Los Angeles setting allows for some neo-noir flourishes courtesy of cinematographer Seamus McGarvey, and playful choices from editor Richard Pearson. The fight sequences, coordinated by Vlad Rimburg, are so cleanly executed they’re sharp enough to cut glass — performed, shot and edited with the utmost precision.

While “The Accountant” delivered a dependable ‘90s-style throwback action thriller, “The Accountant 2” is much the same, though it embraces a looser, more amusing tone, while playing in a story sandbox that looks like our world, with our issues: immigration, human trafficking, organized crime. Affleck is right in his wheelhouse playing a wealthy, idiosyncratic vigilante who rains justice on those wrongdoers who would harm innocents — he’s just not wearing a bat suit this time, and he seems to thrive without it. This character might think about things a little differently, but that’s what makes him special. What can’t this accountant do?

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‘THE ACCOUNTANT 2’

3 stars (out of 4)

MPA rating: R (for strong violence, and language throughout)

Running time: 2:12

How to watch: In theaters April 25

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