MovieChat Forums > Cleaner (2008) Discussion > This movie should have ended in Kinkos (...

This movie should have ended in Kinkos (spoilers)

posted 16 years ago by chasevh
6 replies | jump to latest

The resolution of this movie as we have it is pretty nonsensical and makes Sam 'The Man' Jackson come off like a huuuge jerk off.

Given his character's circumstances of his past actions as a corrupt cop and the fact that he had his wife's murderer shanked in prison, him suddenly becoming Duddley Do Right and having an insatiable need to see his partner to justice for virtually the same crime (in a matter of speaking...another dude having a hand in forcing the death of your unborn loved one, your family...you know, one of the big themes in the movie) and the fact that he WILLINGLY hands the ledger over to the corrupt detective (which, of course, has his character's badge number listed in it...a secret that apparently he wants to keep secret even though he says he doesnt want to keep secrets anymore) to be burned, doesnt really make sense. There is no need to have Ed Harris arrested,as if this guy Vaughan, the corrupt police commisioner we never see can have anybody disappear and has a monopoly on keeping things secret, as well as having absolutly no ties to the murder of the victim mixed with Sam Jackson's character, who should really have no motivation for seeking the path of justice, there is just no point to it. You cant even argue that he would like to see the corrupt commisioner to justice as he turned in the damned ledger.

If we are going on the path of "i dont want to keep secrets anymore" then this movie should have ended in Kinkos after Ed Harris' death, with Sam Jackson "cleaning house" of all secrets and xeroxing a libraries worth of copies of the ledger and sending it out to all major/small newspaers, the DA, Internal Affairs, places all over the country and city. It may have his name/badge# listed in there, but if you want no more secrets and that was your motivation to bring in your friend, your long time partner, to justice for what was almost your same crime...well then, I reckon that means you have got to take your medicine too.

I guess Ed Harris said it best in the movie "Oh when its you anything goes, but when its me and i need help its a problem, where was the conscious of yours then"

PS. fwiw my bro and I liked the movie and still do, but 5 minutes after it ended we realized the more we thought about it the more the 'resolution' or un-resolution pissed us off. Still, its lands above most of Renny Harlins work Ive seen. Still cant beat Die hard 2 and Cliffhanger.

[–] wop0101 16 years ago

Yeah, great point. I was kind of annoyed about the same thing when Ed Harris delivered that line. It rings so true that we as an audience can't sympathize with SLJ all that much. Kinko's would have been a great idea.

[–] hooper-xxx 16 years ago

It rings so true that we as an audience can't sympathize with SLJ all that much.

Who is this "we" of whom you speak?
Ed Harris' character placed both Tom and especially his daughter in mortal danger. Had I been Tom, I would have shot him myself. Eddie Lorenzo was a nut, plan and simple. He knocked up a married woman and then murdered her husband when she chose to terminate the pregnancy and remain in her very comfortable married life. How is that justified? That guy, the late Mr. Norcut, never did a thing to Eddie Lorenzo, quite the contrary.

[–] hooper-xxx 16 years ago

I couldn't disagree more. Eddie set Tom up. Tom wanted nothing more to do with that life and Eddie dragged him back into it, in the process making him an accomplice to and a suspect in the murder of a rich white man (i.e. one that will be thoroughly investigated.) Eddie's machinations also made Tom and his daughter possible targets of retribution by a corrupt power broker and half of an entire police force who were loyal to him.

Tom did what he had to do to protect himself and his daughter. Any sane individual would have done the same, your sense of propriety be damned.

Additionally, Eddie's murder of the husband of the woman with whom he was having an illicit affair isn't morally comparable to Tom's alleged involvement (which was never explicitly admitted) in the killing of the man who murdered his wife. Even if Ann Norcut's husband had bribed her into having an abortion, which he didn't since she said that she never told him, that still isn't murder. Abortion is legal. Breaking into someone's house and executing them on their living room sofa isn't.

[–] silvershadow56 16 years ago

When your "partner" - someone who thinks of you as "family" - sets you up for a fall . . . all bets are off.

[–] PopperTheKungFu-Dragon 11 years ago

Exactly. This spoiled the movie for me too. I was actually enjoying it until he turned out to be as corrupt as any of them after his all his talk of wanting to not keep secrets anymore.

I also agree with you about Ed Harris saying it best.

[–] lathe-of-heaven 9 years ago

You have a most interesting point... 

To be honest, I'm completely naked right now... But, in addition to that, I have to admit that I had not thought of it quite that way, but I can see the logic of what you are saying.

However, after reading some of the responses here (YES, I am being Oh So Fickle, sorry...) I can see their point too about what ol' Ed did to Tom and potentially his daughter, putting them in danger, etc.

Soooooo, I think, like a LOT of other films, I can accept the moral ambiguity at the end. BUT... and it is a BIG BUT like Mariah Carey's... I DO agree with you that it would have given his character a nice moral 'Bump' if they HAD indeed shown him at the VERY end that he had made copies and was in the process of distributing them to the media, etc.

I DO think that that would have been a nice touch...

I have over 6000 films now, many of them very rare and OOP. I LOVE to trade. PLEASE ASK! 