Review: Clean

Digital: Clean (2021)

Working through the night, Clean (Adrien Brody) is a garbage man on the streets of America. He picks up the odd interesting discarded machine, repairs it, then sells it for pocket money at the local Pawn shop. He spends his time quietly and only really has any contact with a young girl called Dianda (Chandler DuPont) whom he passes every morning, and who he makes ‘healthy dinners’ for.

Yes, Clean is a tortured man with a secret, similar to in You Were Never Really Here, and a definite throw-back to 70s revenge thrillers like Death Wish.

Through flash backs we see the tragedy of his past, and the reasons he now tries to lead a good life, doing good deeds (like cleaning up drug houses).

When Diandra falls in with a drug crowd and is nearly gang raped, Clean intervenes, and in one of several ultra-violent set pieces in the film, equals Old Boy with a monkey wrench.  Unfortunately one of the men he kills is the local mob boss’s son.

This has got quite a lot of negative reviews online, but I think Brody’s performance elevates it above a ‘run of the mill’ revenge film and turns it into a more considered and tortured-soul redemption story.

On digital 4th July.

Review by Tina from a streaming link kindly supplied by 101 Films.