Cleaners (Short)
“Cleaners” features Jon Polito and Santos Morales as housekeeping in a small-scale hotel. They are going in to a room when Polito’s character, who has nearly all the dialogue, finds something while straightening up…a DVD player. He is ecstatic, and dreams of finally having some control over the break room viewing he and his partner, named Gonzelas, can do. There doesn’t seem to be any pangs of guilt in Polito’s eyes or demeanor, although a daydream while they clean hints he may feel a bit guilty…or, at least, want to point the theft in a different direction. That is all there is to Paul Mastroianni’s short film, really, and it’s a bit too slight and thin to really stand out as a premise for a short film, but Polito, a skilled character actor, makes it work as much as it can. It’s his bravado and enthusiasm as the character that makes this an entertaining viewing experience, even if it doesn’t really work on the whole.
