Clean

I stumbled upon this movie CLEAN one night, having read the synopsis and finding it rather intriguing, I decided to watch it. I always find that low budget indie's can make for a great night of movie watching for it feels where they lack in budget, they make up in acting, talent and a passion for the making of the film. Having seen that it won awards, I had a feeling I was going to have found a hidden and unknown gem.

What I discovered with this was anything but that, a film trying so hard to be good that it fails in every aspect known to man. It felt like the director was so happy to actually be making a feature, that he just made it without any thought or understanding of what it takes to tell a good emotional driven story and thought if you have all the dramatic scenes in there, that people would just feel like they were moved. Well, audience's are a lot smarter than this film wants to give them credit for.

The plot description is very simplistic, Maynard is trying to get CLEAN in LA and gets hired to drive a limo around, of course he runs into problems with a past relationship and ends up having to go down the dark path he so desperately tried to escape.

The film is thrown together with different characters he meets along the way but they are all one note characters. The snotty girl who's father is a millionaire and thinks she can get away with anything, the washed up actress who hates her life, the druggie ex girlfriend, and others that just detract from what could have been a really good movie.

I place the blame on the director who also wrote, edited, produced, and production designed the film. For someone who has that much control over his project, he should have known when it didn't work right. I read an earlier review that commented on the scene where Maynard outright yells and tears down a woman for eating breakfast during lunch which had no set up, no build up to why that character would explode on her in such a way, or have any affect on the film afterwords. It's like he just wanted to showcase dramatic performances but couldn't figure out how to make them work.

As for the acting, certain actors stood out more than others but could have been a lot better had they been given better material to work with. Some of the dialog seems very forced and unnatural leaving the actors performances coming off more like they are reading lines instead of becoming the characters they were playing.

The one good thing this movie has going for it is it's cinematography which looks really good however the way it's edited, the movie felt disconnected which is most likely due to the director and writer not being able to cut a scene or shot he wrote and directed. One can only imagine what could have become of this film had someone else edited it.

In the end, CLEAN is a very bland and poorly made movie with one note characters and a really unlikable lead character that we are supposed to relate and care for throughout the duration. Maynard seems like he hates everyone and everything in life, he's horrible to woman and just isn't at all redeemable in any way, shape or form. The constant abuse to women in this film also brings up questions (there wasn't a single female in this film that wasn't portrayed as a skank, druggie or ::censored word for female dog:: With so many better films about this subject matter out there, there isn't a single reason I can concoct in my mind why anyone would ever waste their time on watching this.

I checked out the director's filmography and found he has only done short films since he made this in 2004 which really didn't surprise me in the slightest. After watching CLEAN I can honestly see why.

After watching this film somewhat randomly due to the limited selection from 'vongo,' I checked it out on IMDb and was surprised to see that it had only one broken-English comment. This is a very good, very strange movie. The plot follows a man named Maynard who is trying to get, that's right, clean. Maynard gets a job as a limo driver and the rest of the film follows his adventures with the people he drives around Los Angeles. Many on the scenes are simply small character studies, and some have larger plot arcs that carry through the story. Individually, each scene is well-crafted, and the dialog holds your interest even if it smacks from time to time of 'indiefilm-dialog.' All in all, a very well done movie...the kind that makes you happy you stumbled across it.

A friend of mine lent me a screener of this film. I was told at the particular screening my friend went to there, was more laughter and walk outs than any other film. With good reason.

This is ultra bad film school writing, directing, acting, shooting and editing at it's most insipidly hispterish worst complete with coke sniffing off body scars (sorry kids, you are not cronenberg), badly acted sex (I feel sorry for everyone involved), and crappy cinematography. Editing makes no sense, ackward cuts and matchs, not in a good way. No sense of flow even within scenes. Acting is hollow al la 'cool' indie crap. The dialogue and writing is perhaps some of the most illogically stupid and amateurish drivel any bad actor has been tasked with. not even pacino could work this garbage. wow. just, wow.

Paul Morrissey minus the talent.

Don't waste your time. Relentlessly boring, with long periods of inactivity "made up" for with an unbearable soundtrack. This is a poor poor attempt at a gritty realistic and ironic look at Hollywood and celebrity, with undeveloped characters being explored by amateur actors. Not one single person you care about, and no plot to speak of. Ridiculous and inane. What is amazing about a film like this is that it truly says nothing. The title of the film implies that we will see some sort of example of what "clean" looks like, but instead see a parade of depraved characters, and a protagonist who we can not like, much less get to know, as he speaks a grand total of about 10 lines of dialog, along with a couple of lame ass monologues directed at other characters, meant to assert his moral or ethical superiority, yet it is never once on any kind of display for us to see. Im not sure who did a worse job here - the screenwriter, or the actors, although I suspect the actors were doing the best they could with a script that left them absolutely no clue of who they were supposed to be portraying. A cheap attempt at a surreal drug dealers lair, a la Boogie Nights, comes off as studenty and amateurish. Bad movie folks.

Excellent well filmed and well interpreted it show the underbelly of the life in Hollywood. The script and character are fantastic. Hopefully the movie will have a world wide distribution. Also there is confusion with a French Canadian production having the same title. The film deals with a seedy subject, has scene dealing with masochism, rape and homosexuality yet is not obscene or pornographic. As an independent film I believe is qualified for general distribution. The interpreters the director and photographer should be commented for the work they have done. The film shows that an excellent film can be done with a low budget