The 2024 darkly comic action crime film The Clean up Crew is all about crime scene cleaners stealing big money. American director Jon Keeyes puts his “Irish” on to work Matthew Rogers‘ script. It has an impressive cast and a lot of laughs, of the black humour variety of course.
The film entertains mightily. It is odd then that IMDb.com gives the film a paltry 4.2. Rotten Tomatoes does not even give the film a look in. Was that down to Melissa Leo’s wavering Irish accent?
The story
A small disparate group of Irish crime scene cleaners find a case full of money; 2 million pounds worth. They decide to steal it. One of the crime scene victims, who survived the shootout, comes to collect. As the money is pay off to the Commish, there could be trouble ahead.
The Main Cast
Jonathan Rhys Meyers is Alex.
Swen Temmel is Chuck.
Ekaterina Baker is Meagan.
Melissa Leo is Siobhan.
Antonio Banderas is Gabriel.
Matthew Tompkins is Rob.
Conor Mullen is Officer James.
Ian Toner is Officer Garland.
The Clean up Crew BTS
DP Austin F. Schmidt works well with Film Editor Rylan Rafferty. The fight scenes, orchestrated by Stunt Coordinator Joe Condren look great. As do the death scenarios.
The only real issue with The Clean up Crew deal with the shootouts. There is a over reliance on CGI wounds and blood spatters in the industry at the moment. This has been around for awhile now, Rust issues notwithstanding. The fight scenes in the 2003 Beat Takeshi vehicle Zatoichi (The Blind Swordsman) has a incredible amount of CG blood being spilled.
In terms of non celluloid film making, nothing screams video faster than a CGI squib shot.
It works
Despite Melissa Leo’s faux Irish accent, The Clean up Crew works. It is fast paced, silly, violent fun. *Side note: Do not misconstrue my criticisms of Ms Leo and her Irish vocal presentation. I am a huge fan. I cried buckets when her character died in The Equalizer 2. Such was the power of her performance.*
Everyone brings their A game to the table. Banderas, as the Machiavellian quoting gang leader, enjoying his cup of tea, rocks. He is vanity in a suit and a brilliant caricature of an inefficient leader.
Rhys Meyers brings it all to the fore in this one. He proves, as do the rest of the cast, that they know the proper way to do comedy. Even the dark kind. The violence in the film is “over the top” and it adds to the humour.
Kudos to music supervisor Annette Conlon for mixing what sounds like part of the Richard Burton score from Bluebeard (1972). Combined with a pop/rock/folk music trousseau. It is the score that moves things along so well.
The Verdict
The Clean up Crew boasts a full 4.5 stars out of 5 here. It loses a half star for those abysmal CGI shootouts. It is streaming on Prime right now. Ignore that silly 4.2 IMDb score and go watch it without delay. You will thank me, mate.
the trailer
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