Adrien Brody Adrien Brody Adrien Brody Adrien Brody.

One sentence you’ll probably never hear coming out of my mouth is “I’m sick of Adrien Brody films.” Granted someone will probably go back a few years and find me saying the same thing about Danny Trejo, whose films I now mostly boycott, but consider this for a moment. Shut up.

Clean is a 2022 Hulu release directed by Paul Solet who you may know from 2009’s Grace and 2017’s Bullet Head starring who else but Adrien Brody. Clean stars Adrien Brody as Clean, a trash man in Utica who works the night shift. My condolences, on the Utica part. Now Clean is a garbage man who works at night in a shitty part of a shitty city, meaning he has a tragic, often violent history. All of them do, just ask your local garbage man. It’s a requirement for the night job position.

Now Clean has taken on a surrogate daughter Dianda (Chandler DuPont) because her parents aren’t in the picture and she lives with her grandma who can’t really provide for her. While trying to protect her from the numerous bad men in the city, Clean unfortunately draws the ire and retribution of the local mafia man Michael.

Obviously a big part of the film is about parenting. Clean has his own tragic history with his family, Dianda is growing up without parents, and Michael? Well Michael is a whole different story. Played by the incredibly talented Glenn Fleshler of Joker and more importantly The Cobbler fame, Michael is on the opposite end of Clean, teaching his son to be a bad guy while feeling morally responsible in creating the next generation of criminal because that’s how his dad raised him. Mikey (Richie Merritt) meanwhile doesn’t really want anything to do with that mafia life and may be on the receiving end of an ass-whoopin as a result.

Clean isn’t a revenge fantasy, but instead a somber story about a man who tried to leave the old life behind only to find himself pulled back. Rather than being driven by revenge, Clean knows that the best defense is often a good offense, and that guys like Michael will never truly stop being a threat until they are dealt with. There’s a few good fight scenes in the movie, Clean gets his ass beaten enough to remind you that he’s not a superhero, and overall the soundtrack is just fantastic.

It’s a story that we’ve seen a million times before but in the capable hands of Adrien Brody (who is also a writer, producer, and did the music) as well as Fleshler, Merritt, DuPont, and even RZA as Pawn Shop owner Kurt, it’s an engaging movie that will keep you through the 90 minutes. Brody’s Clean is a retread of the “man with the dark past” story that might come off as derivative, but the film gives it enough emotional baggage that it does ultimately feel fresh to me.

Rating: B