Cleaner (film)

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Movie
German title Cleaner
Original title Cleaner
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 2007
length approx. 93 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Renny Harlin
script Matthew Aldrich
production Michael P. Flannigan ,
Steve Golin ,
Lati Grobman ,
Samuel L. Jackson ,
Avi Lerner ,
Alix Madigan
music Richard Gibbs
camera Scott Kevan
cut Brian Berdan
occupation

Cleaner (alternative title: Cleaner - His Business Is Death ) is an American thriller from 2007 . Renny Harlin directed the film and Matthew Aldrich wrote the screenplay .

action

The widower Tom Cutler, a former New Jersey police officer , runs his small company as a crime scene cleaner after crime scenes have been examined by police experts. The cleaner lives with his 14-year-old daughter Rose.

He's given the job of cleaning a blood-smeared crime scene. The key to the house is hidden under the flower pot at the entrance. He routinely takes Polaroid photos of the crime scene beforehand while he speaks a description of the crime scene as a memo on his dictation machine. He notes that the huge blood stain on the floor is no older than 24 hours. Then he professionally cleans the blood-smeared sofa, wall and floor. Since he forgot to put the key back, he brings it to the house the next day. The landlady, Ann Norcut, apparently doesn't know anything about his cleaning work the day before. He does not clarify the situation for the time being and fakes a mix up of the address. His phone call to the police reveals that no murder has been reported at this address. The police officer who gave the order according to his secretary's phone message does not exist either.

While on a bar crawl with his former partner Eddie Lorenzo, he learns from TV and from another ex-colleague that Ann Norcut's husband is missing. His belongings and his car were found. The husband was summoned as a witness.

Soon after, Ann Norcut comes to Tom Cutler's office and wants to know more about his allegedly false home visit. In the process, she discovers that Tom Cutler has something to hide. Cutler, visibly unsettled, continues to pretend to be ignorant and asks her to leave, since he has a full day at work.

When Tom Cutler is cleaning up another bloody crime scene, his ex-partner Eddie Lorenzo visits him to tell him that forensics at the Norcuts house could not find any traces of a fight or a crime scene, but that a high concentration of cleaning chemicals was found suggests a crime scene cleanup. Tom Cutler finally admits he was there and tells his ex-partner everything he knows.

Back in his office, two homicide police officers are with him and ask for a sample of his cleaning chemicals as a reference because of the chemical residues found at the scene. When asked whether he had carried out a cleaning job in the house in question, he faked a review of his card index and said no. The policemen are satisfied and leave.

Tom Cutler and Ann Norcut meet at church and try to find out who hired Cutler to clean the crime scene. She tells about her husband and suspects that he was killed because of a book that had police officers on his payroll. Cutler then meets again with Lorenzo and informs him about the book. Lorenzo tries to convince Cutler to burn the book and destroy all evidence, otherwise the murder investigator, Detective Jim Vargas, who has already visited him in the office, will kill him. Thus, Cutler believes that Detective Vargas is responsible for the murder.

After further encounters with Vargas, Ann Norcut and Lorenzo, Cutler finds out that Norcut was not killed because of the book. The key to Norcut's house he found under the flower pot belonged to an Ann Norcut lover. It turns out that Lorenzo had knowledge of the key that Cutler found under the flower pot and must therefore be the murderer. The autopsy tells us that Norcut was sterilized. Lorenzo's motive for the murder now becomes clear to Cutler in further conversation with Ann Norcut. He thought that Ann had to abort the baby she had with Lorenzo under pressure from her husband, whereupon Lorenzo shot him in revenge. It turns out, however, that Ann's husband did not yet know anything about the pregnancy, but would inevitably have found out at some point that he could not be the father.

When Cutler meets with Detective Vargas to give him the book, Lorenzo does not appear as promised. A phone call from his daughter tells him that Lorenzo is with her. Cutler then drives home immediately, where a heated argument breaks out with Lorenzo, in the course of which Lorenzo admits to having committed the murder and using Cutler as a crime scene cleaner. Cutler then wants to lead Lorenzo away, but he draws his gun and aims at Cutler. A shot is fired and Lorenzo is lying on the floor with a bullet in his head. Cutler's daughter saved his life with a gun from her father.

At the end of the film, Cutler hands over the book Norcuts, which contains all the bribed police officers, to Detective Vargas so that he can destroy it.

Reviews

Eddie Cockrell criticized the visual style of the thriller in the magazine Variety on September 24, 2007, which is narrative "trendy", but also ethically "repulsive" and "logically absurd". The film wouldn't leave any major mark.

Michael Rechtshaffen wrote in The Hollywood Reporter on September 12, 2007 that the crime thriller was one of the director's best works. He praised the "expert" portrayal of Samuel L. Jackson in the lead role.

The film service said: “Psychological thriller about loneliness and seduction. A stylish finger exercise in the matter of film noir, whereby the chic illustrated story about a femme fatale is developed a little slowly. "

backgrounds

The film was in Shreveport ( Louisiana rotated). Its production amounted to an estimated 25 million US dollars .

The world premiere took place on September 11, 2007 at the Toronto International Film Festival 2007 . On September 27, 2007, the film was shown at the Festival Internacional de Cine de Donostia-San Sebastián . The widespread release in US theaters was scheduled for December 14, 2007.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for cleaner . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , November 2008 (PDF; test number: 116 000 DVD).
  2. ^ Film review by Eddie Cockrell, accessed October 31, 2007 ( Memento from October 18, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ↑ Film review by Michael Rechtshaffen, accessed on October 31, 2007 ( Memento from October 8, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ^ Film review on filmdienst.de, accessed on October 31, 2007
  5. ↑ Filming locations for Cleaner, accessed October 31, 2007
  6. ↑ Box office / business for Cleaner, accessed October 31, 2007
  7. ↑ Cleaner's premiere dates, accessed October 31, 2007