Cedric the Entertainer stars as Jake Rodgers in Code Name: The Cleaner, from director Les Mayfield. Jake is a special operative, or maybe he’s a wealthy business owner… unfortunately he can’t remember. He’s got bigger problems; you would, too, if you woke up in a posh hotel room in downtown Seattle beside a dead man. Make that a dead FBI agent—a dead FBI agent and a briefcase containing $250,000. Not good, not good at all.

I confess that I had fairly low expectations as the lights dimmed and the movie began. Imagine my surprise, then, to find The Cleaner exceeding these admittedly low expectations. Oh, the movie does drag its heels as it sets up its thin story, and some of the jokes fall a bit flat; but I ultimately settled into a moderate level of enjoyment watching this fun little comedy-action flick.

You shouldn’t expect a bullet-proof plot or a great deal of character development from some movies; this is clearly one of them. Cedric the Entertainer is first and foremost a comedian. Here the movie is mostly a vehicle to stitch together comedic scenes. And while it doesn’t always work as well it might, director Mayfield manages to pull things together often enough to provide decent entertainment. If nothing else, you have to admire Cedric’s willingness to be the butt of his own jokes.

The supporting cast is good, especially Lucy Liu playing Jake’s girlfriend Gina. A scene featuring DeRay Davis as a wanna-be rapper confronted by an FBI agent in a bathroom is especially funny, if on the crude side. Still, I confess… I laughed. It’s also worth mentioning Niecy Nash playing “Jacuzzi,” in a small but memorable role.

Okay, the bottom line… if you want a light movie with a dash of comedy and a sprinkle of action—and you happen to like Cedric the Entertainer—you could probably do worse than Code Name: The Cleaner. But don’t expect much more than that.

Code Name: The Cleaner is rated PG-13 for “sexual content, crude humor and some violence.” That seems fairly accurate to me. The violence is more on the cartoonish end of the scale. There is a lot of gunfire but fortunately everyone seems to be a bad shot.

Courtesy of a local publicist, Michael attended a promotional screening of Code Name: The Cleaner.