Cleaner

Tom Cutler is a crime scene cleaner – his company is contracted to remove the blood and gore left behind when the authorities have removed the bodies. A former cop, Tom is also a widower with a teenage daughter to look after. Tom gets a job like any other and cleans the mess from a bloody murder in a rich neighbourhood so that nothing remains for the family to see. He goes back the next day to find the family home but that they have no knowledge of his work or indeed that anything untoward happened. Trying to contact the cop who gave Tom the job turns out to be a dead end and a fake name, meaning that Tom has effectively deleted all evidence of a murder before anyone else knew about it. When the police launch a "missing persons" enquiry into a high-profile man in a police corruption case, Tom quickly finds himself up to his neck in trouble.

The cast attracted me to this and I wondered why, with all these people involved, I hadn't heard of it. Watching it helped me understand why it never came to my attention because it doesn't ever get going before it hurts itself. The concept is good enough as we have a former police officer now cleaning crime scenes used to delete the record of murder. On paper what happens also works well as skeletons come out of the closet and the stakes get higher as Tom nears the truth, however when it comes to delivery on screen, it all falls apart. The opening of the film is brisk enough but when it gets to the point where it has to start doing something (ie specifically when the crime is discovered) the film seems to slip into neutral gear and just coast on as before. As a result we get lots of stuff that don't work and should have been minimised or removed and also lots of stuff that is too average to impress.

What I am talking about is the lack of pace and tension in the film; I know that Tom is an older character and that a good thriller doesn't need shouting or running to engage but this film definitely needs some energy injected into it. It drags its way through the plot to the obvious conclusion (and, detail aside, it is pretty obvious) and it never really made me sit up and take notice. A lot of the problem is with the writing because on one hand we clearly have a film that is put together as a thriller but then on the other hand the writer seems keen to drive the film from the characters. Thus we have scenes of domestic troubles, moments with characters revealing things about themselves and, to be blunt, too much talking. It wouldn't matter if the film did this in a way that engaged me but at the same time it is attracting you with the thriller plot so that all this other stuff feels like a waste of time – they could have worked together but here they don't.

The cast can do nothing with it either, although none of them really help themselves. Considering what better films all those involved have done, it is disappointing to see them struggle or fail in different ways. Jackson appears to have been mis-directed because he is looking for something from within his character instead of just flicking into "thriller mode". Neither the material nor the film rewards this approach and his performance ends up feeling like another distraction. He does work well with Palmer though (who herself is very good) but again this whole side of the film feels like a distraction. Harris is obvious and a bit lazy, while Guzmán plays it the way you expect. Mendes is the biggest let-down for me. I know many don't rate her but I think she is good at what she does but, here, she just struggles with her dialogue and character and is about as poor as I think I've seen her.

Overall then what we have here is a flat film that never really sparks into life in any regard. The thriller core lacks energy and the associated threads of family etc are not allowed to grow and end up just being distractions. You can see the potential but without decided what it wants to be, general uncertainty has prevented anyone working too hard and has produced a surprisingly sluggish and dull affair.

CLEANER is somewhat of an enigmatic movie: it starts out as though it is going to be a sassy comedy about a retired cop whose job it is to 'clean up' after homicides (a distinctly messy and repulsive job), turns into a rather grisly crime investigation story, adds a dollop of 'ain't life grand', and finishes as an exposé of police corruption. The story line by Matthew Aldrich is further fragmented by being so full of holes that the audience has to toss credibility overboard in order to make it through, and the method of direction by Renny Harlin can't seem to settle on which style to take. It is all kind of a mess and justifies the straight to DVD move. The saving grace of the film is a cast of stalwart actors who can make even a shaky script palatable.

Tom Cutler (Samuel L. Jackson) is a 'retired' cop who makes his living cleaning up the gory remainders of criminal acts of homicide and other grisly crimes. We learn his wife was murdered some years ago, leaving him as a single father of the bright and charming teenager Rose (Keke Palmer). Cutler happens on an assignment to clean a particularly gruesome homicide scene in the home of one Ann Northcut (Eva Mendes in a nicely understated role) and as the convoluted story develops, Cutler realizes that the crime scene represents a culmination of forces that threaten to uncork a long history of police corruption - a history that involves him and his best friend Eddie Lorenzo (Ed Harris) and the tough Detective Jim Vargas (a terrific Luis Guzmán). How the story ties together and ends is too loose to convey and would ruin the minimal drama present.

Each of the actors, even the minor roles played very well by such artists as Jose Pablo Cantillo and Robert Forster, give it the full court press. But the see-through script and the jumbled camera work and direction prevent this from being a significant film. Grady Harp

The concept of cleaner is really interesting. An ex-cop becoming a crime scene cleaner. It's unique. We usually see ex cops becoming PI's or something similar. It's kinda gross to think about it and even more to see it but it's a real thing so it got my attention. The cast is also excellent. Big names like Samuel L. Jackson and Ed Harris will always catch your attention. Unfortunately that's where the good ends.

The convoluted plot is weak and unbelievable. Corruption, murders, betrayal, vengeance, affairs... it's like a bad telenovela. The ending is as weak as the plot. When the credits roll you're left with the thought of "what the hell was that?" Maybe someday someone can take the good idea and make it into something worth watching. This was not.

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.