Cleaners

12 April 2014: 1. I rented the DVD from Red Box because I thought it was a regular movie. 2. The second reason I rented is because of cute Emmanuelle Chriqui. She is so cute and has great sex appeal. The first time I saw cute Emmanuelle was in a movie with singer Usher "In The Mix" in year 2005 and then again with Adam Sandler in "You Don't Mess With Zohan" in year 2008.

The rest of the cast was okay. Gina Gershon did a good job, but my biggest complaint is because there was too much unnecessary profanity. Some of the scenes were not realistic enough, but in the movies or on television, I guess anything can will happen. Also, I did NOT like the violence on the women where the men were punching and kicking the girls. There are way to many movies now with violence on women/girls in rape scenes or women being abused by men.

Sat through some episodes and was constantly wondering why this series was ever made. Never seen such bad, ridiculous action shots. I mean, a shout-out in a room 5x 5 meters, a 1/2" wooden table stopping the bullets from a machine gun for you? A guy being strangled by pulling a plastic bag over his face? (stick your finger through it, moron!) A fist fight against a priest in habit, face hooded invisibly, because it's really the 'stunt' man... Who came up with this idea? All time low in cinematography. I'd demand to erase my name from the title roll... Really really: you do not want to spend a precious second of your life watching this. Spend it on reading a book.

This series is altogether pretty crappy, but the only thing that motivated me to sit through it was the stunning Emily Osment, who literally saved the show. Without her, the movie is edited with an amateur style, as if with some child's video camera from last Christmas, and the storyline has too many flaws to point out here.The storyline itself says it all. A film about 2 villains as the protagonists, getting a job done. This storyline could go well, or not. This is an example where it has not. So watch it for Emily, or otherwise just don't.There are plenty of other TV series to watch. BTW, Osment stars in a new ABC show called Young and Hungry, so that ought to be another crappy series I'll only watch because of Emily.

I watched season 1 and 2 in 2014. Somehow I missed to write a review here. But this gave me also the opportunity to re-watch the show.

'Cleaners' has a fast, humorous, sometimes brutal style, you can even say it is a parody of ultra-cool modern pulp fiction. Dialogs are short, cliché-loaded on purpose, fighting scenes often over-the-top. The show plays with a number of genres, characters and plots, exploits them to a point, but also let them be where they belong, maybe even to honor them. There are a lot of moments where one can recognize some of the ancestors the show 'cites'. I think the movie 'Face Off' is one of them.

If one cannot stand the cut and some scene change, that's understandable. Some people may find that annoying. I liked it, as it is a big difference to so many other shows.

The show is remarkable reckless to its own story-line, but also very kind to its characters. Everyone, even the most notorious killer, gets a positive or sympathetic side.

I found the balance between dark comedy and thriller just right, at least in the first season. The second season is a bit slower, a bit less funny, and a bit too serious sometimes, but has at least 12 episodes instead of 6. The episode length is always about 22 minutes including credits at ~24fps.

Of course there are some mistakes here and there where you have to raise your 'suspension of disbelief', like in so many other crime shows. That is not an extra minus for a show like this.

About the acting, most entertaining for me was Gina Gershon as 'Mother', Clifton Collins as her 'Samurai' Julian is like a character from Kill Bill, and Emily Osment makes a great Harley Quinn-like companion to a bit colorless Emmanuele Chriqui. Her Veronica (or simply 'V') is the only one that didn't quite convince me, she sometimes looks insecure, what she should currently express, or what her role is in this mess.

But 'Cleaners' is overall very entertaining and funny, so I have to give 7 stars.

The screen shots got annoying after the first 10. The editing was horrible. New is not always good. I watched 3 episodes and stopped. A waste of my time. What is it with "Mother" and her son? The kid's part was not well thought out. The background music sounded like a rehash from a porn movie. Yes, the chicks are hot, but beyond that the show had no redeeming qualities. There was gratuitous that seemed out of place. I have seen more violent movies where the violence did not seem out of place. Knitting to relax and you are a killer? Editing again. When they pull into the hotel the kid is not in the back seat. I guess they forgot about him.