Nom de code: The Cleaner

For a James Bond prototype, this isn't that bad. One of the few that deserve more attention then they really get. The only other 'Bond' prototype that is as funny as this one would be Johnny English. Yes, we all have seen the plot, but it's the twist to the storyline that keeps it interesting. This time our hero wakes up in a hotel room, on the bed next to the dead man's body. It starts out more of a mystery, then quickens the pace just before the half way mark comes. Cedric is clearly at the top of his game both pyhsically and in his jokes. For sure he does a better job at keeping his material censored, heck, depending on the child, this could even be a kids movie.

I have no idea why I rented this film. It must have been the name Lucy Liu. This type of comedy is not something I like, though it probably will appeal to some.

The Cleaner from 2007 stars Cedric Kyles, Lucy Liu, and Nicolette Sheridan. Jake (Kyles) wakes up in a hotel with a dead body next to him. He has no memory of who he is or what he's doing in the hotel.

Then he meets a beautiful blond, Diane (Sheridan) who claims to be his wife. When he goes to a restaurant, the waitress (Liu) pours a pitcher of cold water on him -- he doesn't remember having any relationship with her, but she's plenty angry.

Slowly he starts to realize that he was a secret agent undercover as a janitor, and that his enemies want something he has.

To be honest, the outtakes shown at the end were funnier.

Cedric the Entertainer, as he is called, is funny with a nice presence, but this movie was just a lot of slapstick and shootouts. Lucy Liu was sexy and tough in her role -- it turns out she's an agent.

There just wasn't much to it as far as humor. Mark Dacascos is so handsome, it was almost worth watching it for him.

I don't have too much to say -- if it weren't for the fact that Nicolette Sheridan prances around in her skimpy underwear, a five year old might enjoy this movie.

Friday night my wife and I went to see Code Name: The Cleaner, staring Cedric Kyles (AKA Cedric the Entertainer) and Lucy Liu. It's about Jake, a man who wakes up in a hotel room, next to a dead body, with no memory of who he is or how he got there. As events unfold around him, he starts to recollect that he is a secret agent, and puts together that he was working undercover as a janitor on a deadly mission.

This was another fun movie. It had a PG-13 rating but I would say that it was a fairly mild PG-13 (a few shootouts and Nicollette Sheridan in her undies), so I wouldn't worry too much about taking a 13 year old to see it. It's the first movie I've seen with Cedric in the lead role and only the second with him in it at all (Serving Sara was the first). I really liked him. He was absolutely hilarious without going over the top. Of course Lucy Liu is always a sight to behold.

The rating it has received on IMDb was a dismal 3.0 but that was because a significant number (52%) of the votes were a 1. I suspect that the movie or one of it's actors really perturbed some group, so they retaliated with a vote drive. There is no way this movie rated a 1. I personally gave it a 7 and my wife tells me we will own this.

Incidentally, stick around for the first half of the credits. The show some very good outtakes.

Cedric the Entertainer is certainly a talented comedian, but with a script this boring and stupid, even he couldn't breathe life into this horrible mess of a comedy. Despite the bad reviews, I was still slightly eager to check out the movie. The year has just started and already I have a candidate for the worst movies of 2007. The spy comedy has been done to death. And the fact that the writers had nothing new to bring to the table didn't help. I must've chuckled a total of 5 times, and received no laughs whatsoever. As the movie (thankfully) approached its conclusion, I jokingly thought to myself, "This is probably one of those flicks that contains a gag reel over the closing credits." Well...I was right! I frequently disapprove of gag reels over the credits of good movies. When you show a gag reel after a bad movie, it's like rubbing salt on a wound. The only part of this movie worth checking out is Nicolette Sheridan doing an erotic dance in her lingerie. If the movie ever makes it to HBO On Demand, I suggest you just fast-forward to that particular scene, mute the sound, and watch it in a loop. Yes, it's that friggin' hot! As for the comedy, expect your usual assortment of bland, crude, sitcom-style gags. If you can't see the punchlines to each gag coming a mile away, you might want to consider getting a cat scan. In one scene, a janitor (one of Cedric's co-workers) is interrogated by a federal agent in a restroom. The agent points a gun at him, urging him to give him some information about Cedric's character. The janitor is an aspiring rapper, and goes on a whole rant about how he wants to be shot, since he wants to be the first rapper to write his songs while in a coma. He bends over, begging the agent to shoot him in the backside. The agent eventually leaves the restroom, as the janitor keeps screaming out, "Put a bullet in my a**! Put it in my a**! Put it in my as**!" And--guess what--one of his fellow janitors strolls into the restroom as he continues to scream out, "Put it in my a**!" Unless you're a teenager who will laugh at all things scatological, you might want to consider putting a bullet in your own rear end for finding an outrageously stupid gag like that funny. My God! How screenwriters actually get paid to write this crap still boggles my mind! A man of Cedric's talent is capable of doing much, much more, as he's shown in the "Barbershop" movies. But when given rotten material like this, he attempts to mend each failed joke with improvisation, which in turn makes the jokes even more annoying.

Watching this movie, I kept thinking they couldn't afford to have a real script written, and must have run out of money when they were about 2/3 of the way through, and couldn't finish editing it. Not to mention, they probably couldn't afford Martin Lawrence for the lead role, so they filled it with Cedric the Entertainer, who does better in supporting roles. Cedric does have several funny scenes, though.

The plot is completely unintelligible, and undeveloped, but based on the genre you can predict most of the action. It's the ever-popular "hero has something secret the bad guys want, so they can sell it to terrorists for a fortune, but it's missing." Not to mention, the scenes or "shticks" that have been better done elsewhere. For example, every time Cedric tried to be funny with judo moves, I kept thinking that he ripped that off from Martin, who does it much better. There is a brief cat-fight scene that is far inferior to the one in Undercover Brother (which is an excellent movie, and much funnier overall).