Cleaner - Sein Geschäft ist der Tod

I had very low expectations for this movie. Renny Harlin hasn't made a decent movie in many years so I expected the usual crap, but i was very surprised. It had good plot, very nice acting and was well made. Samuel L. Jackson plays a retired police officer who has a "Cleaning company". He cleans up murder scenes and other scenes of death. One day he does a job in a mansion and gets trapped in a web of deceit.

The Movie unfolds in a low key, unusual for Renny, which usually has lot of noise and action in his movies :) It has lot of blood though(not surprising given the title...) So basically this movie is a good way to spent hour and half. Hopefully Renny boy is out of the slums....

As a finnish movie fan, it's always interesting to see a new film from Renny Harlin. Especially when Samuel L. Jackson, one of the most distinctive actors ever, is in it.

Jackson plays a crime scene cleaner, which you think would be what this movie is surrounded on. With all the C.S.I. stuff out there, it might interest some. But the scene where the story starts actually tastes like an idea where to start the story, not a theme for a movie where to excavate.

The plot is an uninspiring one, from the beginning to the end. There are some attempted details and twists to bring some life and excitement to this story. I'm sorry to say they really fail. There is no depth in this movie, and every attempt to create some is exactly that - an attempt.

This is bad cause the acting is pretty and the directing is nice. I can't really understand what the director saw in this script. Maybe the idea of creating something without special effects and exploiting the CSI-thing.

I give this one 6/10. All points going to actors and the director.

The movie is categorized as "Crime / Thriller". If you want anything good (and new) like that I suggest you see "Awake".

The premise of 'Cleaner' is quite clever; a professional cleaner cleans up a crime scene, only to discover that, in spite of original appearances, the police had not recorded the crime at all. Unfortunately, as he tries to find out who has put him up to this, the film descends into regulation cliché. It's not an awful film, but it is the sort of movie in which, shortly after each character appears, you can reliably predict what their ultimate role in the plot will be; and where none of the various twists comes as a real surprise. Everything is improbably connected; there's a beautiful woman (although surprisingly no sex); it all comes down to a personal showdown at the end. It's watchable; but scarcely interesting.

This is a fun, relatively forgettable little flick. I saw a documentary on real life cleaners of this sort, and that is a nasty business.

Samuel L Jackson does a good job, like he normally does. Cleaner is entertaining, and I think it does a pretty decent job sucking you into the story. Eva Mendes walks around looking like some computer animated hottie (that's just how she looks!) and also gets the job done.

OK, let me address the elephant in the living room, here.. How did Renny Harlin go from something easily watchable and entertaining like this, to The Legend of Hercules? I just don't get that. Moving on.

Cleaner won't keep you up at night, it probably won't be your all time favorite, but you are entertained while it lasts. Watching Jackson clean and talk about cleaning is pretty fun.

Cleaner is a surprisingly boring and lackluster movie beautifully photographed. The casting is superb and would seem to be a sure recipe for cinematic success--Samuel L. Jackson, Ed Harris, Eve Mendes and Luis Guzman. The dialog is decent and well acted. The plot is where this movie just completely drops the ball.

The plot begins mildly unbelievably--A crime scene cleaner becomes unwittingly immersed in the cover up of a homicide--and then just snowballs downhill from there into a huge police cover-up (I don't want to "spoil" anything for any potential viewers) with an unbelievable plot twist and then ends in a thoroughly stupid and highly implausible ending.

The upside and downside is this movie is beautifully filmed and with such talent, thought and effort that the cinematography itself keeps you thinking it has to get better and it only gets worse.

I hope Ed Harris got paid a lot of money to do this film! Ed does a great job with the little he has to go with and proves what a great actor he is. Eva Mendes does a poor job playing a recent widow to murdered husband (is she angry/sad/sexy/conspiratorial/or just a gold-digger who married a sugar daddy who just got knocked off?). Luis Guzman does a solid job as usual.

I seem to enjoy the movies where Samuel L. Jackson plays a supporting role or shares the lead rather than being the sole lead e.g. Pulp Fiction, The Negotiator, A Time To Kill, etc... In Cleaner he does a reasonable job with a poor plot until the end where his acting coupled with a bad plot twist left me wondering what I could have done better with the time it took to watch Cleaner.

All in all I wish this cast and DoP would have had a better script. I would recommend that Matt Aldrich stick to acting and give up the script-writing. As I think everything was done well except for the storyline/plot aka the script. I give kudos to Renny Harlin (director) for a job well done.