Cleaner

Tom Cutler (Samuel L Jackson Jumper, Pulp Fiction) is an ex cop turned crime scene cleaner. When he arrives at a suburban house to clear up a gruesome murder he finds no one home. Finding a key outside the house he enters and proceeds with his horrific task . But when he returns with the key he meets the owner Ann Norcut (Eva Mendes We Own The Night, Ghost RIder) who has no knowledge of a murder in her house. When she reveals her husband has gone missing, Tom realises he has unknowingly covered a murder. With the help of his ex-police partner Eddie Lorenzo (Ed Harris National Treasure: Book of Secrets, A History of Violence), Tom has to fight to identify the murderer before he finds himself implicated in the killing. And soon he realises he is involved in a scandal that could rock the police force to its foundations

Former New Jersey cop Tom Carver (Samuel L. Jackson) now runs Steri-Clean, a crime scene cleaning business, while raising teenage daughter Rose (Keke Palmer) in the wake of his wife's murder. Booked to clean a crime scene in a smart neighborhood, Tom does a typically efficient job of eradicating all traces of what looks to be a messy shooting. When he forgets to leave the key and returns to drop it off, he's startled to learn the lady of the house, Ann Norcut (Eva Mendes), has no idea what he's talking about. But her husband's gone missing. The case brings together Tom's ex-partner Eddie Lorenzo (Ed Harris), detective Jim Vargas (Luis Guzman) and shadowy figures within City Hall who recall a time when Tom wasn't as honest or as diligent as he is now.



Samuel L. Jackson does a solid job as Tom Carver, the ex cop who cleans up a crime scene and thus almost covers up a murder. It's a clever premise and helps drive this offbeat cop drama involving corruption, revenge and lies. Jackson's screen authority provides ballast for the character, and he's well supported by young Keke Palmer as Rose, his teenage daughter, who is still grieving for her murdered mother. That backstory also carries elements that haunt Tom, as well as serving as a domestic trauma that he has to deal with.

Ed Harris is in top form as the cop who is also Rose's godfather - a relationship that plays in the background. Luis Guzman is impressive as the tough little detective in homicide, while Eva Mendes is less vibrant than she can be as Ann, the woman whose husband had some secrets that he thought would keep him safe. Her own secrets didn't help her, either.

Renny Harlin is used to this sort of thriller material, what with Die Hard 2: Die Harder and Cliffhanger (among others) on his track record, although the scale of Cleaner is smaller (well suited to DVD, though). His attention to detail ensures that the film can also be used as a DIY instruction manual for cleaning up messy, gooey crime scenes and leave the place like a driven 50s housewife might.


Samuel L. Jackson ... Tom Cutler
Ed Harris ... Eddie Lorenzo
Eva Mendes ... Ann Norcut
Luis Guzmán ... Det. Jim Vargas
Keke Palmer ... Rose Cutler
Maggie Lawson ... Cherie
Jose Pablo Cantillo ... Miguel
Robert Forster ... Arlo Grange
Edrick Browne ... Det. Darrin Harris
Marc Macaulay ... Vic
Rosalind Rubin ... Crying Woman
Mike Guy ... Priest #1
Richard Folmer ... Priest #2
James Barnes ... Lawyer
Linda Leonard ... Francine Mason

The Living and the Dead

Close to bankruptcy and facing the disintegration of his home and family, Lord Donald Brocklebank lives with a terminally ill wife Nancy and schizophrenic son, James.

In a last ditch effort to raise funds, Donald must go away and so he arranges for a family nurse to come and care for his wife.

However, James would like nothing more than to prove to his father that he is a responsible adult but suffering hallucinations from his drug cocktails, James tragically locks Nurse Mary out of the house. As the stress of looking after an ailing patient increases, James' own mental condition worsens and his ability to care for his mother diminishes along with his ability to tell fantasy from reality with tragic and harrowing consequences.

Simon Rumley's "The Living and the Dead" begins as a rigorous study of a crumbling family in one of those crumbling English country houses. Lord Brocklebank (Roger Lloyd-Pack) has a sickly wife (Kate Fahy) and a twitchy adult son named James (Leo Bill) who seems to be schizophrenic, epileptic, autistic and devoted to wearing a suit that fit him snugly at age 15. Bill's performance as a damaged young man who desperately wants to please his parents is not delicate and may not be politically acceptable to all viewers, but it's an uncanny and powerful one. When Brocklebank goes away on business and mom's nurse fails to show, James blows a gasket and the movie does too. Rumley's realism and restraint abruptly vanishes, plunging James and the viewer into a jittery, nightmarish maelstrom of sound and image meant to capture his permanently altered state. "The Living and the Dead" is not an easy movie to sit through, and its darkness may be a little mannered, but it's an elegant construction with real emotions buried deep inside.

Oart neo-gothic horror, part empathetic schizoid freak-out, The Living and the Dead suggests an unlikely cross between Spider and Requiem for a Dream, albeit one whose whole is less than the sum of its parts. The only child of the aristocratic Brocklebank family, James (Leo Bill) suffers from an inferiority complex as a result of his mental retardation, having come to loathe himself for his inability to be "normal." When his father (Roger Lloyd-Pack) is forced to leave home on business matters, James takes the opportunity to prove himself a responsible adult; locking the family nurse out of their manse, he assumes care of his sickly mother (Kate Fahy), whose needs he is wholly unable to provide for. The series of unfortunate events that unfold therein echo the suspense-baiting tactics of the shrill A Beautiful Mind's baby-in-the-bathtub scene, only director Rumley understands the twisted, ugly nature of mental disorder far better than Ron Howard. As external spectators to this dilemma, we're left to recoil at the abusive decay and unforgiving brutality of James's personal oblivion, while Rumley's practically alien compositions defy any singular perspective or sense of reality. Though this effectively evokes James's barely-there awareness from one moment to the next—particularly through the use of time-lapse sequences that suggest his childlike mental tangents—the mise-en-scène remains too stylistically disjointed to take us into the deepest recesses of his depravity. As is evident here, Rumley—who wrote the film in response to his mother's short-lived battle with cancer—is a great humanist. The Living and the Dead, then, is most effective as a promise of greater things to come.



Roger Lloyd-Pack ... Donald Brocklebank
Leo Bill ... James Brocklebank
Kate Fahy ... Nancy Brocklebank
Sarah Ball ... Nurse Mary
Neil Conrich ... Policeman

Enchanted

A fairy tale comes to life in this thoroughly original, new Disney Classic. Drawing inspiration from its classic heritage, Disney creates an inspired story unlike any you’ve experienced before.

Filled with excitement, fun and incredible music from the legendary Alan Menken, Enchanted is the ultimate fish-out-of-water adventure. For princess-to-be Giselle, life is a fairy tale – until she’s banished from the animated land of Andalasia and thrust into the very unmagical, live-action world of modern-day Manhattan. When a cynical, no-nonsense divorce lawyer comes to her aid, little does he realise this joyful, wide-eyed innocent is about to enchant him. Enchanted – the musical comedy that will have your entire family under its spell.

DISNEY then, Disney now – this live action/animation modern fairytale uses the studio’s past to take it to the future.


Beginning like the classic animated stories, with a beautiful princess being rescued by a handsome prince, it raises a laugh immediately with a brilliant send-up of the saccharin duets the young lovers usually sing.


But then the obligatory evil stepmother banishes the Prince’s new bride to a place “where there are no happily ever afters” — modern day New York.


He won’t give up easily though, and joins the exodus to the Big Apple. As the animated characters emerge from the New York drain, they become live versions of themselves — with brilliant results.


Amy Adams’ wide-eyed Princess Giselle is rescued by a handsome, disillusioned divorce lawyer and his young daughter, who is the only one to believe her fantastic story may be true. Giselle’s innocence in the most cynical of surroundings make for the most delicious comic moments.


James Marsden is wonderful as the dumb but romantic Prince, whose first act in NYC is to stab a bus which he believes to be a mechanical beast — is he wrong?

Susan Sarandon’s spectacular evil stepmothertakes too long to emerge from her cartoon world but steals the show when she does.


The Sneak took two boys of five and seven as well as a girl of eight to the screening and all three loved it. Yes, even the boys did. Laced with humour that appeals to all ages, this magical tale is a huge blast of family fun.


Definitely the best film for young kids this year. The Sneak, of course, was Enchanted.

The good news: animated Disney princess Giselle (Adams) has found true love with a prince (Marsden). Bad news: his stepmother (Sarandon) doesn’t want him to create a new queen, so she banishes Giselle to real-world New York, which doesn’t gel with her fairy-tale ways.



For all their contribution to animation history and their near-miraculous ability to condense any emotion into a hummable melody, Disney’s animated heroines can be irritatingly earnest. Their eyes almost pop their sockets with innocence and voices that speak of independence disguise hearts that yearn for some betighted hunk to rescue them from a life populated by furry companions. They’re in dire need, in other words, of a kick up the bustled butt and a good shot of cynicism, but it’s surprising that Disney themselves would be the ones to deliver it.

Enchanted opens in the long-lost world of the Disney fairy-tale, where nobody has jobs and horses have opinions. It’s here we meet Giselle (Amy Adams), a romantic optimist, shortly before she’s thrust into the fleshier world of real-life New York, where locals will happily trample a damsel in distress if it gets them to the subway a little quicker.

It’s a cute idea and one that Kevin Lima (who directed Disney’s terrific Tarzan) and screenwriter Billy Kelly squeeze for maximum fun. Amid the fish-out-of-water gags and big musical numbers, there are nods to Disney movies past and even what looks like an homage to Beauty And The Beast’s hill-running homage to The Sound Of Music. How’s that for postmodern? The film’s best asset, though, is an extremely game cast.

Amy Adams is just wonderful. Her cartoony over-gesticulation and face writ with complete delight in the world are as wholly believable as ink and paint made flesh. It’s the sort of Johnny Depp-like commitment to daftness that could potentially see her name on award shortlists. James Marsden is an equal hoot as Giselle’s lunk-headed suitor: a hero in animation, an unwittingly misogynist snob in real life. It’s a shame that the fun doesn’t stretch to Susan Sarandon’s wicked queen, given too little screentime to make a scary or ludicrously camp impression; or Patrick Dempsey as a grumpy lawyer whose cynicism is chipped away by Giselle’s chipperness.

Though things, naturally, wrap up in a twee little bow of happy endings (this is wry Disney, but it’s still Disney), the tangle beforehand is a silly, retro blast.


It’s essentially, y’know, for kids, but the dedicated fairy tale fan will have tons of fun spotting all the references. Adams, meanwhile, gives one of the comedy performances of the year.


Julie Andrews ... Narrator (voice)
Amy Adams ... Giselle
Patrick Dempsey ... Robert Philip
James Marsden ... Prince Edward
Timothy Spall ... Nathaniel
Idina Menzel ... Nancy Tremaine
Rachel Covey ... Morgan Philip
Susan Sarandon ... Queen Narissa
Jeff Bennett ... Pip in Andalasia (voice)
Kevin Lima ... Pip in New York (voice)
Emma Rose Lima ... Bluebird / Fawn / Rapunzel (voice)
Teala Dunn ... Bunny (voice)
Fred Tatasciore ... Troll (voice)
Courtney Williams ... Sunglass Street Vendor
William Huntley ... Grumpy