Cinematic espionage is such a malleable subgenre that it can be used as the basis for everything from action and comedy to thriller and drama, but regardless of how many offshoots onscreen subterfuge may have, very few movies have ever proven to be as outright abominable as 2007’s Code Name: The Cleaner.
Comfortably one of the worst spy stories you’re ever likely – or unfortunate enough – to witness unfold with your own two eyes, Cedric the Entertainer stars as a man out of his depth who wakes up in a hotel room one morning with no idea how he got there, even though the presence of a dead body and a briefcase full of cash in the bed makes it clear that all is not well.
From there, he comes across Lucy Liu’s waitress, who tries to convince our hero that he’s a janitor at a video game company. Needless to say, Cedric’s Jake begins to suspect he might be an undercover operative working for the CIA, a belief that steadily grows more concrete as people emerge from the woodwork trying to kill him.
It’s a decent enough setup, but the fact Code Name: The Cleaner holds a woeful Rotten Tomatoes score of only four percent and barely recouped half of its $20 million budget at the box office pretty much says it all. However, despite being an unstoppably awful film, Netflix subscribers have gone all-in to give it a second chance.
Per FlixPatrol, the wretched critical and commercial disaster has ended up as a proud member of the streaming service’s global most-watched list, so spare a thought for those poor souls who won’t get the 84 wasted minutes of their lives back.
Published: Mar 31, 2023 01:51 am