Adrien Brody plays a community do-gooder with a not-so-pristine past in this action film directed by Paul Solet.
Adrien Brody, as Clean, the title protagonist of this movie, drives a sanitation truck with the company name Bliss on its driver-side door in the opening scene. As Clean tools through desolate semi-urban streets in the dead of winter, stopping at the junkyard to feed a wiry dog, it’s clear that right now bliss isn’t part of the man’s program.
In voice-over, the character, who sports a large but well-tended beard and sees the world with wide, baleful eyes, speaks of “a sea of filth, an endless onslaught of ugliness.” Clean sounds a little like a cabby whom cinephiles became familiar with in the 1970s, no?
As it happens, it’s one of the members of Clean’s 12-step group who introduces himself as Travis.
It’s understandable that an actor of Brody’s upbringing (he’s a native New Yorker) and inclination might want to concoct a variant on the “Taxi Driver” character who referred to himself as “God’s lonely man.” (The actor co-wrote “Clean” with its director, Paul Solet. Brody also composed the music.)
Unlike the eventually messy antihero of Martin Scorsese’s movie, Clean, seeking sober redemption after a tragic and criminal past, is actually adept at meting out violence. After practically caving in the already unlovable face of the son of a local drug kingpin, Clean is obliged to put his skills to further work rescuing a teen girl who, well, yes, reminds him of someone he lost.
After teasing the audience with an arthouse-inflected diffusion of narrative for its first half, “Clean” goes full grindhouse in the second. Shot in Utica, N.Y., and boasting locations that set a high bar for starkness, “Clean” has some real craft, but doesn’t quite satisfy as it toggles between bloodbaths and bathos.
Clean
Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 34 minutes. In theaters and available to rent or buy on Apple TV, Google Play and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators.
