Released: 01/05/07

Viewed: 9:55 pm 01/05/06

Starring: Cedric The Entertainer, Lucy Liu, Nicollette Sheridan, Mark Dacascos, DeRay Davis

Directed by: Les Mayfeild

New Line Cinema - Official Site of the Movie

In terms of great spy movies, Codename: The Cleaner had a tough act to follow. 2006’s MI:III, Casino Royale and The Good Shepard were three very exciting, very different, and very well executed approaches to the world of espionage. The Cleaner promised to be an original fourth approach and instead of going with “funny� they just went with “bad�. Who saw that coming? A lot of people actually. Against the better advice of dozens of people warning me this would be a complete disaster, I held out hope that a funny comedian and everyone’s favorite sexy Asian ass-kicker, could provide a hilarious and thrilling night at the movies.

Lucy Liu is still sexy Asian and ass-kicking, but 2007’s premier super spy Cedric The Entertainer, as a man with amnesia that may or may not be a spy, spends so much time being puzzled and confused by his situation, that he forgets to be funny. Maybe instead of searching for the truth about his past, he should have spent a couple minutes looking for something funny to say.

Liu is in this movie. I have to say it out loud just to believe it. I watched her in it for an hour and a half and I still don’t believe that it actually happen. Still, I can understand why she would want to be in a movie like this. It’s different. Liu has had a great career, but for the most part she always plays the part of “the bad ass hot girl�. To different degrees of course, but when you see Lucy Liu show up on screen it’s a safe bet that this character is as deadly as she is sexy. That she’s killed as many people as she has adorable freckles on her nose.

Last year she popped up in the same kind of movie playing a different kind of character. In Lucky Number Slevin Liu played the spunky next door neighbor that was one part naïve and one part curious to the world of organized crime. I’m convinced she was cast as a red herring just to throw off the audience. We were meant to suspect her character of being menacing just because it fits what we’ve seen her as before. And I fell for it hook, line and sinker. That’s ok. It made the movie that much better, and she was really great in it. Bubbly and lively. Completely different and fresh. It was a whole new reason to love Lucy Liu, like we really needed another.

The early previews for The Cleaner showed Liu punching and kicking her way through a sexy funk song, but in the quieter moments there was still the glimmer of her Slevin character, and I was eager to see her again. The correct solution to this need – Buy and re-watch Slevin. The solution so obvious it must be a trap – Go see The Cleaner.

It’s not that Liu, or anyone for that matter is especially bad in The Cleaner, but no one is really great. She’s the gorgeous action explosion you’d expect her to be, but the twinkle from the trailer that drew me in, faded out somewhere around the point where the audience is expected to buy her and Cedric as an item. Cedric spends too much time moving the plot along to be funny. It’s why he’s always been so good in supporting roles as a character actor. In the Barbershop movies and The Steve Harvey Show (funny as hell – watch it) he’s there strictly to be funny. Having to pull double duty in The Cleaner robbed him of some of that magic. He’s made me laugh hard in the past and I found myself now desperately searching for something, anything to even snicker at.

The funnier moments seem to be those that were improvised on the spot. Throw away lines and after thoughts from Cedric that didn’t always make sense, but were irreverent enough to connect with me. Those were much stronger than the orchestrated situational humor that felt rushed and not thought out. I actually like the amnesia spy premise, but they spent so much time establishing that backdrop, that they forgot to tell any jokes.

One person impressed me consistently and that was DeRay Davis. He plays a janitor/wannabe rapper, and he was funny every time he was on screen. I can’t decide if it’s because he’s just a hysterical guy, or if it’s because he was on screen only enough where we got to see all his A-list material. Either way, he saves the day. Between his combined 5 minutes of screen time, Liu’s slow-motion hair shots, and the novelty that the Chairman Mark Dacascos from Iron Chef America is the lead bad guy, this movie is almost worth paying to see.

Almost

Rating: 3 out of 10 - A horrible introduction to the New Year. While this is the first official 2007 release I’ve seen, The first movie I saw in the calendar year was Children of Men, but only just. I saw Men about 6 hours before seeing The Cleaner and I’m glad I was able to sneak it in so that the year didn’t start at such a low point. But the year is young. There’s still time to clean up this mess. (Oh, I almost made it through with out some lame “Cleaner� joke!)

Nope. The Cleaner has its head in the right place but never manages to find the right jokes to make it more than just a good idea. There’s a nice catfight in there and I know people that have bought DVD’s based on less titillating subject matter, but as fine as these cats are, neither can spar. The outtakes reel that runs with the closing credits of the movie boasts some of the more amusing moments of the film. I suppose if there’s a larger outtakes reel on the DVD it might be worth a rental but I can picture myself now getting violent angry if I spend one more dime on this film and walk away unsatisfied.

Featuring: The Man - I couldn’t figure out why but this movie reminded me very much of the 2005 comedy The Man starring Sam Jackson and Eugene Levy. The themes are different but both movies share a very forced but timid style of comedy and feature talented people being uncharacteristically untalented.

During my research rounds the answer quickly became clear when I found that director Les Mayfield is responsible for both cinematic low points. I would have been happy to accept him as a bad director and call it a day, but he also helmed Blue Streak and Encino Man which are not exactly genius but are movies that I would place at the low end of “great�.

The Cleaner was a mess, but last year really was a fantastic year for spy movies. Later this week I’ll finally have the review for Casino Royale (about time, I know), as well as a review for Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery on the Wednesday, the10th. The first Austin Powers movie was the winner of the readers vote for the 10 on the 10t. Get my thoughts on the comedy classic as well as the rest of my top 10 spy movies of all time.

Tonight at 10pm I’ll be participating in a podcast with Tom Brazelton and Gordon McAlpin. It’ll be our first official podcast all together, and hopefully will become a weekly event. It’s all up to you guys though, so if you’re around swing by and have a listen.

In addition to that I’ll also be doing the Digital Pimp Pimpcast this Wednesday evening at 10. That’s another weekly show I’ve been doing that’s been a lot of fun. If you’ve got any questions about any of the Digital Pimp comics, from the characters to the creators to the process, to anything, stop by and we’ll be more than happy to answer them. Even if you can’t listen live, post your questions here and we’ll still answer them! Then at your leisure you can play the podcast back and learn all of our deepest darkest secrets. Creepy, right? See you later.