Film Review – The Clean Up Crew

August 18th, 2024 | POSTED BY Allen Almachar

The Clean Up Crew (2024) has a lot of ingredients to make for an entertaining crime thriller. Big name actors, plenty of action, and sly dark humor are all at play. Unfortunately, the overall picture is not as good as the individual pieces. This is a story of incompetent people bumbling their way through a paper-thin caper. They all trip over themselves, stumbling into a predicament involving money, the mob, crooked cops, unhinged anti-heroes, etc. – all of whom aren’t very good at their jobs. Sometimes, that can be a good thing. Seeing characters who are clearly in over the heads can be pretty funny at times. Sadly, that element is sorely missing here. 

Director Jon Keeyes and writer Matthew Rogers weave a tale of multiple people all trying to bag a big score. Gabriel (Antonio Banderas) is a crime boss who has a near unhealthy obsession with Machiavelli. He was due to receive a hefty sum of cash, but the transfer was botched, leaving a houseful of dead henchman and a case of money hidden in the chimney. Said case was then discovered by the crime scene clean up crew, including boss Siobhan (Melissa Leo), recovering addict Chuck (Swen Temmel), and lovers Alex (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) and Meagan (Ekaterina Baker). Instead of turning the dough in, the crew decides to keep it for themselves – because who wouldn’t want some extra money to help pay expenses? As Meagan explains, it could help her and Alex finally get married and settle down for good! Of course, this decision does not sit well with Gabriel, who sends his goons to take out the crew and retrieve the case.

And that’s really all there is to it. The writing does add in some minor surprises meant to question everyone’s motivations, but the main narrative arc has both the crew and Gabriel trying to outwit each other – to varying results. It’s that dynamic that puts a damper on the whole affair. Outside of Chuck having somewhat of a checkered past, the crew isn’t exactly a gathering of criminal masterminds. The fact that they can go toe-to-toe with Gabriel says more about him than them. What kind of crime lord would allow four amateurs to outsmart him? One of the few bright spots is seeing Antonio Banderas chew scenery as Gabriel becomes more frustrated. Even though Banderas’ services are clearly limited (he mainly appears in the office of his warehouse), and the screenplay doesn’t provide much material to work with, he does all he can to make the character memorable through his flamboyant, exaggerated performance.

The same cannot be said for the rest of the characters. Despite having several talented actors, there just isn’t enough for them to be interesting. They’re all conceived to have a single dimension: Siobhan is the tough but loyal boss, Chuck is the unhinged firecracker ready to explode at any given moment, Meagan is motivated only by money regardless of the consequences, and Alex is stuck in the middle as a reluctant participant. Sure, these traits do lend to some humorous exchanges, as they all have their own reasons to keep or give up the money, but it all exists on a surface level. Because the character development is underwhelming, the stakes don’t feel that high. As the tension begins to mount and the bullets start flying, everyone appears to just go through the motions dictated by their character assignments. We aren’t emotionally invested to anyone, and because of that we don’t care what happens to them.

Part of the reason why we don’t have an attachment to the characters is due to the tone being so cartoonishly over-the-top. There is an intentionally silly and unrealistic way in how scenes are constructed. An early shootout features Gabriel standing right in the middle of the crossfire and remaining unfazed. It’s as though he has an invisible force field that keeps him invulnerable to gunfire. During another scene, a character is surrounded by armed bad guys, only to take them all out by firing pistols from both hands and spinning around in a circle (shot in slow motion, of course). I’m all for movies that forgo realism for a more bombastic style – there’s nothing wrong with that. But in this case, there is no consistency. It’s as if the production threw all their ideas into one pot and tried to utilize all of it. From the wipe transitions, dramatic camera movements, to hyper kinetic editing – it all feels like a jumble of artistic choices with no flow amongst them.

This is best exemplified during a crucial action set piece that has Alex and Chuck trying to thwart off an entire gang of henchmen from storming their makeshift hideout. Out of nowhere, the frame turns into a split screen, following both Alex and Chuck as they try to survive in their own quirky ways. The camerawork and editing choices are peculiar in this section. Sometimes, the separate sides of the screen will follow both characters, other times it will follow just one but from two different angles. Even more strange are the top and bottom portions of the screen, where the visuals are blurred out similarly to what you would get from a Facetime call or Instagram video. The overall look is reminiscent of a comic book, but the effect doesn’t work. Why have this type of approach to begin with? It’s so random that it sticks out badly from the rest of the movie. Because the action is so frenetic, and because it takes place simultaneously on two opposite ends of the frame, we aren’t sure where we are supposed to be looking. It’s just a cacophony of images smashed together. 

Outside of Banderas’ performance, The Clean Up Crew doesn’t add up to a whole lot. It’s a middle of the road crime film that has some good qualities but is mostly forgettable. The thrills are just mildly thrilling, the jokes are just mildly funny, and the action is just mildly exciting. There was obviously a lot of talented people working here, which makes the lackluster result such a headscratcher.

Antonio Banderas, Ekaterina Baker, Jon Keeyes, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Matthew Rogers, Melissa Leo, Swen Temmel, The Clean Up Crew