The Cleaner (2012) User Reviews

No originality, bombastic

[zeevakantiehuisje · 1/10 · 5 August 2013]

This is a typical movie from a young guy who thinks he understand everything about life. The 'grumpy old man' and the 'adorable kid' who 'melts his heart' (the exact storyline that Kolya has, a movie by Jan Sveriak). The dull, apocalyptic atmosphere doesn't add anything to this story, it's just there, for no reason whatsoever. The cleaners in white suits, shuffling their broomsticks in silence are more ridiculous than frightening. They seem to be there to to make the movie 'deep' and 'meaningful', but fail at this. And the tempo is slow like a Tarkovsky, but without the loaded silence and broad gestures. It seems like the maker saw a couple of movies and tried to mix them into one script. There are several concepts quite unrelated to each other. The endresult: rather uninteresting, done before and bombastic at times.

Slow and dreary with one or two funny moments

[cherryspielberg · 2/10 · 17 August 2013]

There were some funny moments in the movie, but if they would cut out all the parts that are actually uninteresting or sometimes even boring, the movie would last only five minutes. I don't understand why this movie would receive prizes... Other than that the maker of this movie is so young and it is his first movie, which is great, but it isn't that great a movie. Maybe it is all meant as an encouragement, but the movie is flawed in many ways. Most of all, we have seen it all before. It is as if the maker of this movie watched a couple of movies and threw them all together. I hope his next movie will be more mature and interesting. And above all I'd like a movie that's more original. The pretense is sky high, with all the great themes of love and betrayal mixed with disasters and a touch of (cheap) Freud. With Woody Allen I'd like to say "I laughed and I cried", but I didn't. Next time I just don't want to see a movie that doesn't remind me of all the movies I saw before anymore. A spark of newness and creativity. I'm counting on it.

Boring slow cutting, poor acting

[nancyvandijke · 1/10 · 1 December 2012]

To be honest I found El Limpiador (the Cleaner) boring. Supposedly dramatic, the basic idea drags on and the cleaning men in their white suits are tiring after half an hour. And it is filmed as if it were full of tension, but there's no great plot or story to be told (seen it all, been there). and the long scenes and slow cutting can't make up for that. Generally the movie drags on.The acting is at times adequate, at times terribly poor. The director is fresh from school, inexperienced in making movies and obviously not mature enough to make a movie on his own. He should have first learned the trade before embarking on such an undertaking. Sadly this one is a waste of time and money.