Renny Harlin takes an interesting (and gruesome) profession and weaves a not so mysterious mystery around it in this thriller. The cast is game but the storyline is one that you’ll see coming from a mile away.
Tom Cutler (Samuel L. Jackson) is an ex-cop who goes into the cleaning business, but he doesn’t stray far from his former profession. You may not know it, but if you find a dead body in your house the city will take away the corpse but they won’t clean up the mess the corpse leaves behind.
That’s where Cutler fits in as he runs a business that cleans up crime scenes or scenes of death. His wife was murdered years ago and he’s raising his daughter Rose (Keke Palmer) on his own. He’s called in to do a job at a mansion and the key to the front door is left under the mat. He accidentally puts the key in his coat pocked and returns the next day to return it.
He’s shocked to discover that the owner of the house, Mrs. Norcut (Eva Mendes), knows nothing about a crime having been committed in her living room. So now Tom has to figure out who set him up with the job and has to contact his old partner Eddie Lorenzo (Ed Harris) for help and stay out of the suspicion of the cop investigating the case, Detective Wallace (Luis Guzman).
Tom has to find the guilty party before he’s framed for the crime since Mr. Norcut is missing and is part of a police department investigation that involves Tom from his time on the force.
The Cleaner is not really a bad movie, but it’s one that professes to have twists and turns but they’re easy to spot and offer little suspense. For example, I suppose we’re supposed to not guess that Tom is cleaning up a crime scene before the police even know about the crime but Harlin hits us over the head with such suspenseful music that we can’t help but know that something is afoot.
The acting is good from all parties, with kudos going to Jackson who actually gets to put something into Tom – unlike his snarling, white-haired turn in Jumper – and Keke Palmer is good as Tom’s distraught daughter. Harris goes through the motions, Mendes is window dressing, and it’s always good to see character actor Guzman in a good part. It’s just a film that you’ll just watch once and in that watching you’ll see the solutions before they’re revealed onscreen.
I pretty much pegged the entire film just by watching the trailer and the guilty parties are not too difficult to figure out. Subtlety is not exactly one of director Renny Harlin’s strong points. The film is serviceable, but just a snack.
The Cleaner is presented in anamorphic widescreen (2.40:1) and is enhanced for 16x9 televisions. Special features include a commentary by director Harlin, 15 minutes of deleted scenes, and previews for other Sony DVDs.
The Cleaner is a good character study for Jackson and Palmer, but beyond that it’s not very suspenseful. It’s a nice snack if you like the actors, but you’ll want a meatier film to wash it down with.
The Cleaner is now available at Amazon and AmazonUK . Visit the DVD database for more information.
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