The gritty indie revenge thriller “Clean” is clearly a labor of love for Adrien Brody. Not only does he star, as a garbage man who goes by the moniker Clean, but he also produced the film, composed the score, contributed original music and makes his feature screenwriting debut, as a co-writer on the screenplay with director Paul Solet.
Clean lives and works in a blighted upstate New York town, where homes stand empty and criminal organizations run the streets. He’s struggling with his past, tormented by nightmares, and so he puts his head down and goes to work, picking up the trash, attending recovery meetings and trying his best to do what he can around town, painting over graffiti on abandoned buildings, offering rides and meals to a young teenage girl, Dianda (Chandler Ari DuPont), who clearly reminds him of the young daughter who haunts his memories.
Often his flashbacks are violent and blood-spattered, and the film gives Clean away too, as he hungrily eyes pump-action shotguns in the pawn shop, and kicks closed mysterious cases when Dianda goes snooping in his place. Clean has a violent past, and a violent nature that he’s barely keeping at bay. Like many an action hero of the past few years, he’s a man with a very specific set of skills who just might snap when someone steals his puppy, or his kitty-cat bracelet, or his daughter (figure).
“Clean” is indeed an indie riff on “John Wick” (or “Nobody,” or “Taken”) but unlike those films, it meanders to the breaking point, filling the running time with Brody’s rueful musings about regrets, blood staining his hands, and trying to save himself, often in a low-whispered voice-over that’s this shy of ASMR. There’s a lot of slo-mo, and aerial shots of the empty snow-covered streets, and crying over pictures of little girls. There are plenty of meaningful looks, but just not enough meaning to sustain this heavy, portentous tone.
For as much as we know about Clean’s inner turmoil, why he sets off on his killing spree is a mystery. Of course, there’s the surface-level motivation (a desire to protect his surrogate daughter), but it makes no sense that a man with his background and the wherewithal to keep his mouth shut about the gang murders he’s already witnessed on the job would suddenly commit a series of incredibly sloppy wrench attacks out of some misguided sense of fatherly protection. Plus, as Dianda and her mother become caught in the middle of Clean’s break and the terrifying fishmonger Mafia of upstate New York, we realize that we know almost nothing about them either. The most well-drawn character is the antagonist, Michael (Glenn Fleshler), who just wants his good-for-nothing son (Richie Merritt) to fall in line with the family business.
There’s no shortage of bleak beauty in “Clean,” and Brody’s musical contributions offer a welcome texture to the world that he and Solet present. Mykelti Williamson and Fleshler bring humanity (the former) and menace (the latter) to supporting roles, but none of this can save the film from the shortcomings of its own screenplay. “Clean” is a “John Wick” riff, and those kinds of films don’t need a ton of explaining; man getting revenge on very bad guys isn’t exactly rocket science. But “Clean” is so lean it’s as if the story itself was sacrificed for atmosphere. “Clean” brings the cold, moody vibes and extreme violence, but narratively, it’s a mess.
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‘CLEAN’
2 stars (out of 4)
No MPAA rating
Running time: 1:34
Where to watch: In theaters, on demand and digital Friday
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