3 Short Paragraphs: Clean

2021, Paul Solet (Bullet Head) -- download

Violence, revenge and redemption. Adrien Brody and Paul Solet team up to do a small, quiet yet extremely violent film that hits with the weight of the pipe wrench that Brody's character Clean wields like John Wick fires a gun. So yeah, Brody is a garbage man named Clean (named? more likely labelled) in the small, sleepy but run down city of Utica, NY a place not much bigger than where I grew up. Clean obviously has a dark past, one he cannot let go no matter how many addiction meetings he goes to, how many kid's bikes he rebuilds, how much garbage he collects.

Clean is sombre, intentionally slow to get going and moody AF. But it got me. Brody plays his character with a tactful amount of emotion, not letting many see the monster he knows is inside him, but also doing his best to steer clear of most people. Using a common enough motivator, not being able to protect the people you choose to, Clean is dragged back into the violence, when the young woman he uses as as surrogate daughter is about to be assaulted. Unfortunately one of the thugs that Clean batters is the son of the local crime lord / fish monger, who then sets his men to take revenge -- with disastrous results.

In watching this movie, and even from the trailer knowing what it was going to be about and knowing I would enjoy, I wonder about my attraction to brutal violence. IRL I am not a violent man, likely incapable of it, but I often feel it beneath the surface, especially in these last few years of anti-vaccine, anti-mandate, anti-black, anti-asian, pro-hate rhetoric AND actions. I want so much for all these hateful people to experience the pain they cause. Clean was about a man dealing with his addictions, and the consequences of them, but also acknowledging that he was attracted to and likely addicted to the killing as well. What must it be like to acknowledge that monster inside you, and get the opportunity to let it out?