Cleaner

Dir: Renny Harlin US . 2007. 92 mins
Ten years have passed since the combination of Samuel L Jackson and director Renny Harlin was a guarantee of lively box-office action. Think The Long Kiss Good Night (1996) and Deep Blue Sea (1999). Harlin has steadily surrendered his A-list status and Jackson has shown an unhealthy appetite for guilty pleasure fare like The Man (2005) and Snakes On A Plane (2006). A reunion on the wearily familiar B-movie thriller Cleaner is not about to secure fresh acclaim for either of them. The combination of star names and brisk efficiency might be enough for Cleaner to pass muster as a home viewing choice but as a big screen attraction it has little to offer. A modest ripple on domestic release may even make a direct to dvd strategy more appropriate for some international territories.

Jackson is on typically commanding form as widower Tom Cutler, an ex-cop who now makes a living cleaning crime scenes and leaving homes spotless in the wake of a suicide, shooting or messy murder. There's an echo of television landmark Six Feet Under in his grisly occupation and early scenes of Cleaner have a certain snap and originality. On one job, Cutler is hired to clean away the blood and brains after a shooting. He returns the next day only to discover that owner Ann Norcut (Mendes) knows nothing of his visit and that her husband is missing. Given that the husband was a key witness in a wide-ranging trial involving police corruption the plot starts to thicken and obliges Cutler to call on his ex-partner Eddie (Harris) for assistance.

An uninspired mixture of old-fashioned private eye mystery and CSI-style whodunit, Cleaner never strays from a tried and tested formula. Thriller fans and general audiences are always likely to be one step ahead of what is happening and the script doesn't even have the decency to try and wrong-foot viewers or throw in a viable red herring or two.

This is straight down the line genre fare that is only elevated beyond the average by the sheer, indomitable professionalism of actors like Jackson and Ed Harris, who both work hard to convince us that we haven't been here a thousand times before. Their efforts are largely wasted on a formulaic screenplay devoid of suspense or surprises.

Jackson emerges with his dignity intact and if he ever felt the urge to make a television series Cutler's occupation could provide him with the perfect material. Cleaner could even stand as the feature-length pilot for such a venture.

The one star element in Cleaner is the snappy, staccato editing by Brian Berdan that manages to inject some pace and urgency into the proceedings. His work almost single-handedly manages to convince us that Cleaner is a better film than it turns out to be.

Director
Renny Harlin

Production Company/Sales
Nu Image (US)

US Distributor
Sony Pictures Entertainment (US)

Producers
Avi Lerner
Samuel L Jackson
Steve Golin
Alix Madigan-Yorkin
Michael P Flannigan
Lati Grobman

Executive producers
Eli Selden
Paul Green
Julie Yorn
Danny Dimbort
Trevor short
Joe Gatta

Screenplay
Matthew Aldrich

Cinematography
Scott Kevan

Production design
Richard Berg

Editor
Brian Berdan

Music
Richard Gibbs

Main cast
Samuel L Jackson
Ed Harris
Eva Mendes
Luis Guzman
Keke Palmer
Robert Forster