Movie Reviews: Clean

Clean
directed by Paul Solet

There are, have been, and likely always will be a number of movies in which a mysterious man is struggling with some past trauma when some criminal makes the mistake of mugging the monster. 

Because this moron didn't realize just who he was f***** with, the mysterious man loses or removes the mental locks and strict imposed inhibitions that were keeping his internal beast leashed, gagged and chained. 

But now, thanks to this big dummy and his greed, ignorance, and total stupidity, the beast is free. 

The old days, the bad days, the all or nothing days are back! And once the beast is free well someone is gonna get his throat ripped out isn't he? 

Many people are going to get turned into red smears on the sidewalk while the beast does what it does best. 

This is the underlying theme of too many movies to mention, including but not limited to Man on Fire, The Equalizer remakes, the John Wick series, Unforgiven, and A History of Violence among others. The difference between Clean and many of the listed films is that Clean does not glamorize the protagonist or show violence as cool or even as deserved --though your mileage may vary on that last one. 

Clean spends a lot of time, maybe too much time in the first three quarters of its duration, hinting at and increasingly showing the costs of what a past life of violence and anger have done to someone. 

I don't think any viewer walks away from this thinking that vengeance or violence are cool. With the exception of his 1987 Buick the protagonist doesn't have any possessions that scream "I'm a baaaaaaaad man!". 

Clean (Adrien Brody) is a very patient and very taciturn garbage man in Utica who is haunted by past visions. Clean also attends AA meetings at the behest of and sometimes with his sponsor and barber Travis (Mykelti Williamson). It's clear that Clean feels he has a lot to atone for in life. Clean lives very simply. He's looking for redemption.

Clean refurbishes and sells older items and machinery to a pawn shop owner (RZA). With the proceeds from this Clean purchases paint and lumber to cover up graffiti and repair run down neighborhood homes. 

Clean tries to watch out for Dianda (Chandler DuPont) the granddaughter of one of his fellow AA circle members. This would be protection isn't always welcome, understood, or appreciated. We get the feeling over time that Clean does see Dianda as a daughter figure and as a chance to atone. 

One night Clean saves Dianda from some serious harm. Certain people are upset by this and decide to demonstrate their displeasure to Clean. They discover that Clean wasn't always a garbage man. 

Clean may subconsciously have been looking for the perfect people upon whom to unleash some very dark pent up frustrations. And they've tripped his wire. Glenn Fleshler (Boardwalk Empire) and Richie Merritt (White Boy Rick) are a father and son who deal with the mistakes they've made.

Again, this is a very non-glamorized, non-Hollywood type of movie. Brody wrote it, produced it and scored it. I think the narrative could have been tightened up a little bit. It had some similarities to Taxi Driver but deviated from that story at key points. I appreciated that it was set outside of the typical big city like New York, Chicago or Los Angeles.