Cleaners (2013–2014) User Reviews (12)

Worth watching because of Cute Emmanuelle Chriqui

[KATO-SUBZERO · 6/10 · 12 April 2014]

12 April 2014: 1. I rented the DVD from Red Box because I thought it was a regular movie. 2. The second reason I rented is because of cute Emmanuelle Chriqui. She is so cute and has great sex appeal. The first time I saw cute Emmanuelle was in a movie with singer Usher "In The Mix" in year 2005 and then again with Adam Sandler in "You Don't Mess With Zohan" in year 2008.

The rest of the cast was okay. Gina Gershon did a good job, but my biggest complaint is because there was too much unnecessary profanity. Some of the scenes were not realistic enough, but in the movies or on television, I guess anything can will happen. Also, I did NOT like the violence on the women where the men were punching and kicking the girls. There are way to many movies now with violence on women/girls in rape scenes or women being abused by men.

Holds much promise

[zereptina-103-132572 · 4/10 · 9 September 2014]

Though season 1 presents a highly contrasted, roughly shot experience, the main characters, their chemistry, and the pacing of each episode is actually quite refreshing. It's easy to get caught up in how cheesy it can be, at times, but for the most part the show offers more than what you first see.

Furthermore, the latest season (2) switches gears in terms of camera work, setup, and editing style. Gone are the quick jump shots, high contrasted scenes and flashbacks - it now presents itself as a much more professional series with diverse characters, exciting and believable action scenes, a more intriguing and intricate plot than the first season, and a powerful relationship between the two mains. All of which is spread apart in 12 twenty minute episodes, twice as many as season 1. The script in season 2 also takes a step up, the vulgarity, which was a tad overboard in season 1, has been decreased to a normal level, which adds to the viewer's ability to relate to the characters.

The presence of two strong, detailed, and witty female leads in an action series is also a great, and rare, takeaway.

The show is definitely worth a shot, most especially season 2.

A Fast, Funny and Violent Farce

[pontram · 22 June 2017]

I watched season 1 and 2 in 2014. Somehow I missed to write a review here. But this gave me also the opportunity to re-watch the show.

'Cleaners' has a fast, humorous, sometimes brutal style, you can even say it is a parody of ultra-cool modern pulp fiction. Dialogs are short, cliché-loaded on purpose, fighting scenes often over-the-top. The show plays with a number of genres, characters and plots, exploits them to a point, but also let them be where they belong, maybe even to honor them. There are a lot of moments where one can recognize some of the ancestors the show 'cites'. I think the movie 'Face Off' is one of them.

If one cannot stand the cut and some scene change, that's understandable. Some people may find that annoying. I liked it, as it is a big difference to so many other shows.

The show is remarkable reckless to its own story-line, but also very kind to its characters. Everyone, even the most notorious killer, gets a positive or sympathetic side.

I found the balance between dark comedy and thriller just right, at least in the first season. The second season is a bit slower, a bit less funny, and a bit too serious sometimes, but has at least 12 episodes instead of 6. The episode length is always about 22 minutes including credits at ~24fps.

Of course there are some mistakes here and there where you have to raise your 'suspension of disbelief', like in so many other crime shows. That is not an extra minus for a show like this.

About the acting, most entertaining for me was Gina Gershon as 'Mother', Clifton Collins as her 'Samurai' Julian is like a character from Kill Bill, and Emily Osment makes a great Harley Quinn-like companion to a bit colorless Emmanuele Chriqui. Her Veronica (or simply 'V') is the only one that didn't quite convince me, she sometimes looks insecure, what she should currently express, or what her role is in this mess.

But 'Cleaners' is overall very entertaining and funny, so I have to give 7 stars.

Excelllent

[robmatthewsjr · 9/10 · 7 February 2019]

I love this show! Fast-paced only 1/2 hour. Dialogue is clever, witty and funny. Lots of action.

Great and original.

Could have been good

[bob-rutzel-1 · 4/10 · 25 May 2014]

Contract Workers (read Killers) Roxi (Osment) and Veronica (Cheriqui) are sent by Mother (Gina Gershon) on a mission to take a car to a certain location. Seems simple enough until they have a flat tire and need to look in the trunk. What they see changes everything.

This could have been pretty good had the Director not fooled around with loud, uncomfortable music and inserting scene shots as thought they were bullets throughout. This was most distracting and gave off that cheesy vibe. The dialogues and acting were pretty good. Okay, we do get a little tired of Gina Gershon curling her lips when the camera is on her. Quite distracting.

Originally, I thought this would be about female assassins, but this story didn't go that way. Maybe in another movie with the Roxie and Veronica, who are pretty good together.

This story takes a page from a Jason Statham movie SAFE and if you have seen that movie, then you know what this is all about. Kind of.

The title is misleading. Cleaners are people who clean up crime scenes or bodies from crime scenes. Here the crime scenes were created. See?

There are a lot of hand-to-hand fights and they are very good. No CGI.

It was the uncomfortable music and scene shots that came in like a Gatling Gun that proved too over the top. (4/10)

Violence: Yes. Sex: No. Nudity: No. Language: Yes.

allow me to correct one the inaccuracy of the other reviews here

[mikziv22 · 8/10 · 20 June 2015]

One of the other reviews states that the running time of each episode is 15 minutes when you take into the account of the advertisements. This is INCORRECT because the fact of the matter is the timer stops during the two breaks in each episode for advertisements. I know because I watched the last half of season two just last night. Also, regarding the same review... how can take an opinion serious from somebody who apparently isn't familiar with the word "scene" but is reviewing movies and/or TV.

All in all the show is entertaining which is all it is meant to be. When one episode ends leaving you on the edge of your seat all you need to do is click the play button in the middle of the screen and the next episode starts.

Worst series since Mr. Ed.

[erik-0 · 1/10 · 12 March 2016]

Sat through some episodes and was constantly wondering why this series was ever made. Never seen such bad, ridiculous action shots. I mean, a shout-out in a room 5x 5 meters, a 1/2" wooden table stopping the bullets from a machine gun for you? A guy being strangled by pulling a plastic bag over his face? (stick your finger through it, moron!) A fist fight against a priest in habit, face hooded invisibly, because it's really the 'stunt' man... Who came up with this idea? All time low in cinematography. I'd demand to erase my name from the title roll... Really really: you do not want to spend a precious second of your life watching this. Spend it on reading a book.

Ugggg

[bills-936-47816 · 2/10 · 16 June 2015]

The screen shots got annoying after the first 10. The editing was horrible. New is not always good. I watched 3 episodes and stopped. A waste of my time. What is it with "Mother" and her son? The kid's part was not well thought out. The background music sounded like a rehash from a porn movie. Yes, the chicks are hot, but beyond that the show had no redeeming qualities. There was gratuitous that seemed out of place. I have seen more violent movies where the violence did not seem out of place. Knitting to relax and you are a killer? Editing again. When they pull into the hotel the kid is not in the back seat. I guess they forgot about him.

Only reason to watch is because the actresses are hot

[sergei740-623-239130 · 10/10 · 6 March 2014]

This series is altogether pretty crappy, but the only thing that motivated me to sit through it was the stunning Emily Osment, who literally saved the show. Without her, the movie is edited with an amateur style, as if with some child's video camera from last Christmas, and the storyline has too many flaws to point out here.The storyline itself says it all. A film about 2 villains as the protagonists, getting a job done. This storyline could go well, or not. This is an example where it has not. So watch it for Emily, or otherwise just don't.There are plenty of other TV series to watch. BTW, Osment stars in a new ABC show called Young and Hungry, so that ought to be another crappy series I'll only watch because of Emily.

Brutal

[juliebartkiewicz · 2/10 · 4 January 2014]

I wasn't expecting much from this show but holy hell it was bad in so many ways. The acting is ridiculous and bordering on Porn Star quality acting, the actual filming makes the entire show look like its on a row boat in a typhoon. The music ans seen cuts are laughable. The whole show is sad how cheaply it has been put together, and mainly because you can tell they had a decent budget that they could have done much much more with.

Each episode is really only about 15 minutes when you take out the adverts, excessively long credits, and scene cuts where they have added horrible cross cut garbage.

2 stars is being generous.

OLD MCDONALD HAD A FARM

[nogodnomasters · 8/10 · 19 November 2018]

The series centers on a couple of quirky hit women. Sort of like Violet and Daisy meet Smokin' Aces. The series is done quickly in a grindhouse fashion as they attempt to squeeze an hour's film into 21 minutes and 30 seconds. I enjoyed the characters, especially the odd relationship between Veronica (Emmanuelle Chriqui) and Roxie (Emily Osment) a girl after my heart.

The plot could have been tighter, and I suspect this first series was done to establish character and relationships. Hopefully they will take the stories up a notch. In this tale a young boy who knows bank account numbers and passwords gets kidnapped. The story involves family double crosses and unlikely alliances.

Parental Guide: F-bomb. Brief sex. No nudity.

Starts Out Bad & Never Gets Any Better

[sharonburnette69 · 2/10 · 16 March 2014]

I rented 2 movies, and watched this one first thinking it would not be as good as the other one. It was much worse than anticipated. It is not interesting at all. We sat the entire film. I was thinking since it had some good actors in it that it would get better. Never did. I am not going to blame the writers, or the actors, but it just was not an interesting film. It started out looking like a very low-budget Charlie's Angel's movie, except Charlie's Angels was great, and this was almost unbearable. I wish they would have taken some more time to make the lines better, and to add something, be it a few good songs, some good humor, some interesting action, or a character that was someone we could relate to, just anything to make it better. The ending was horrible as well.