Cleaner (2007 film)

Cleaner is a 2007 American thriller film directed by Renny Harlin. It stars Samuel L. Jackson as a crime scene cleaner who thinks he has become part of a cover-up; Ed Harris, Keke Palmer, and Eva Mendes also star. The film was released on May 27, 2007.

Plot
Single father and retired police officer Tom Cutler runs his own crime scene cleaning service. Eight years earlier, Tom’s wife was murdered during a home invasion and robbery, which their young daughter Rose witnessed.

Tom receives an order from a Detective Jones to clean the scene of a wealthy home. He enters using a key hidden under a potted plant, catalogues the crime scene and proceeds to clean up the blood and tissue using his own special mixture of chemicals.

The next morning, he realizes he kept the key and goes back to return it. The home owner, Ann Norcut, seemingly does not know that Tom had been there the previous day, nor why his services would be needed. Tom reasons he misremembered the address. Nevertheless, the two grow suspicious of the situation.

Tom asks his assistant about the work order and learns that the police never placed such an order, nor is there a detective named Jones. Tom stashes the order, the photos, his audio notes, and the house key in an envelope and locks them away. Enlisting the help of his friend and former partner Eddie Lorenzo, he learns that Ann’s husband John is missing. Eddie suspects foul play, as John’s disappearance occurred the day before he was set to testify to a grand jury against corrupt former police commissioner Robert Vaughn.

The next day, Ann visits Tom at his office. As he never answered what sort of cleaning services he provides, Ann deduces it was a crime scene, and asks whether her husband was killed. Tom declines to give a clear answer.

Eddie later finds Tom cleaning a scene in a hotel room, and tells him that while the forensic team found no traces of DNA at the scene, they did find professional cleaning chemicals. Tom reveals he has not contacted the police, unsure of how far and wide Vaughn's corruption goes. Later, Tom meets with Ann, who shows him a list John kept of the badge numbers of every corrupt officer on Vaughn’s payroll; including Tom’s. Years earlier, Tom had agreed to do a job for Vaughn, believing it would keep Rose safe. Tom tells Eddie about the list, who urges him destroy it as it suggests motive for Tom to murder John.

Tom returns to Ann, who is suffering from PTSD. She asks to be taken somewhere, so Tom takes her to his employee Miguel’s home, where they have dinner with him and his family.

Tom learns that Ann has been asked to visit the morgue by Detective Jim Vargas, who has been investigating John’s murder. She is able to identify John’s remains. The coroner privately tells Tom that John had a vasectomy several years prior, indicating Ann’s previous pregnancy, which she had miscarried, was not his.

Tom deduces that Ann was having an affair, and that the key left on the porch belonged to her boyfriend. He divulges this information to Eddie before noticing a plaque above Eddie’s fireplace with Ann’s name inscribed at the bottom. Tom realizes Eddie is Ann’s lover, and that the child was his.

Tom decides to hand Eddie over to Vargas, but Eddie instead goes to Tom's home with Rose. Tom hurries home and confronts Eddie, who admits he killed John, believing that Ann had lied about miscarrying and that John had forced her to have an abortion. Holding Tom at gunpoint, he angrily pleads for support, but when patrol vehicles arrive, he aims to shoot Tom. Instead, Rose shoots Eddie in the head and kills him, having run and retrieved Tom’s sidearm.

Vargas thanks Tom and takes the ledger, promising to burn it. Miguel proceeds to clean up the crime scene.

Cast

 * Samuel L. Jackson as Thomas "Tom" Cutler
 * Ed Harris as Det. Edward "Eddie" Lorenzo
 * Eva Mendes as Ann Norcut
 * Keke Palmer as Rose Cutler
 * Luis Guzmán as Det. James "Jim" Vargas
 * Maggie Lawson as Cherie, Tom secretary
 * Jose Pablo Cantillo as Miguel, Tom employee
 * Robert Forster as Arlo Grange
 * Christa Campbell as Coach Beth Jensen

Reception
On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 17% based on 12 reviews, with an average rating of 4.3/10. On Metacritic the film has a weighted average score of 49 out of 100, based on four critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

Michael Rechtshaffen of The Hollywood Reporter gave it a positive review and wrote: "A neatly contained crime whodunit with a nifty setup and an expert lead performance from Samuel L. Jackson."

Eddie Cockrell of Variety wrote: "Scrub away a needlessly fussy visual style, trendy narrative tweaks and a climax both morally repugnant and logically absurd, and there's a tough little noir about buried transgressions coming out of the past in Renny Harlin's lackluster thriller Cleaner. Too mainstream to attract genre interest, and too tangled in its character motivations to sit well with the multiplex crowd, this is a minor stain that should fade quickly and leave only faint traces in ancillary."

Home media
Cleaner was released on May 27, 2008, in the U.S. and opened at #5 and sold 75,312 DVD units, which gathered revenue of $1.5 million. It went on to sell 402,010 DVDs, which translated to revenues of $7.8 million.