Cleaner (2007)

Samuel L Jackson plays Tom Cutler, a former police officer who now runs a crime scene cleaning company. And he's really good at his job. Perhaps the only weakness to this film is how much exposition Cutler offers throughout the movie, but it mostly works. Cutler is assigned a scene and a few days later needs to return to the home for a signature. When he arrives he meets Ann Norcut (Eva Mendes) who has no clue what he is talking about and claims not to know anything about anyone ordering a crime scene cleaning. Cutler is quick on his feet and makes up a plausible excuse as to how he ended up at the wrong house. Cutler returns to his office and asks questions about who ordered the job and begins to suspsect something bigger is at play. Cutler hides the paperwork and the key to the home. Cutler begins having interactions with Detective Jim Vargas (Luis Guzman) and begins to suspect that Vargas might be on the take. Cutler's oldest friend is another detective, Eddie Lorenzo (Ed Harris), who Cutler confides in regarding what's happenning. Mrs. Norcut makes contact with Cutler and confides in him that she suspects something bigger is going on as her husband is missing. Cutler begins looking into the situation and trying to figure out what's going on and what his exposure might be. Cutler's biggest concern is the safety and well being of his daughter Rose (Keke Palmer). As Cutler helps Norcut hide while they investigate her husbands dissapearance and eventual death, he begins to learn more and more and begins to wonder which of the detectives he can trust. Soon Cutler realizes that his friend, Det. Lorenzo, is the one setting him up but he struggles to convince Mrs. Norcut. Eventually he does convince Norcut and together they turn to Det. Vargas and help him solve the case. This was a good movie. Not great, but good. It's relatively short, which likely works in it's favor, at just 88 minutes. Jackson, Harris, Mendes, and Guzman all turn in good performances in their respective roles. The movie also features Maggie Lawson, Jose Pablo Cantillo, and Robert Forster in smaller roles. This has a metacritic score of 49 and an aggregate rating of 6.1 *'s on IMDb. I thought this was slightly better than that and I rate this 7 *'s.