The Clean Up Crew: Let’s say you’re on a murder scene clean up and you apprehensively check a suitcase stuffed with cash. What would an average person do in these circumstances? Probably, one has watched several action movies and thinks there are implicit consequences of fleeing with the money.
That, however, has not deterred Siobhan (Melissa Leo, Deadtime Stories, Thunder Force) the owner of Good Life Cleaners, plus her team consisting of Alex (Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Yakuza Princess, Mercy), his girlfriend Megan (Ekaterina Baker, The Tutor, The Comeback Trail) and Chuck (Swen Temmel, Backtrace, Aileen Wuornos: American Boogeywoman) from doing just so after discovering several million cash concealed within the chimney of a building they are cleaning.
The money actually belonged to Gabriel (Antonio Banderas, The 13th Warrior, The Enforcer) who intended to bribe offensive law enforcers but then in the process of a robbery that went wrong resulted in numerous deaths, the death scene the trio is cleaning. It goes without saying that both the police and Gabriel are after that money and will kill for it.
Instead of treating The Clean Up Crew as the ordinary dark and intense thriller, screenwriter Matthew Rogers (The Survivalist, The Collective) and director Jon Keeyes (Doom Room, Cult Killer) bring to the table what the press release calls “a quirky, fun action movie filled with adrenaline and laughs” which might be a more clumsy way of saying that The Clean Up Crew is simply an action comedy.
A good deal of that comedy is in how Banderas as a crime lord who is quotes Machiavelli shows eccentricity as a character. It is not so much that the character is a stereotypical cliché, it is just that the character is what most would see as processes of an individual who is too much so powerful for no one to tell him what he should be hearing yet not as intelligent as one may presume themselves to be.
In relation, Alex is completely oblivious which is an excellent juxtaposition to him because he is somewhat placed in what is too complex of a scenario for him. As for Siobhan and Chuck, they both know something that they are not revealing that would be important once Megan is siezed.
A least what is unusual considering mid budget options, The Clean Up Crew does have a fair bit of action in it. Some such as a parody of Matrix style shoot outs and another where split screen scenes are ridiculed are played more satirically while others such as the last fight are done fairly serious.
Rogers and Keeyes do a good job of balancing the comedic and serious aspects of the film. The cast manages to avoid overt parody and keeping in character attempting to wink at the audience, even when the material becomes ludicrous even for a comedy. From the leads, I expected that. However, even in minor parts, Sweeney Tommel showed some talent, who was only in small roles before. Also remembered in a smaller role was Matthew Tompkins (The Woman Under the Stage, The Ballad of a Hustler) as Gabriel’s main enforcer.
If you want to waste some time, The Clean Up Crew will surely do the trick. It’s ninety five minutes long and features enough action and comedy to hold your attention.
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