Code Name: The Cleaner

Cedric “The Entertainer” takes on dual identities in the action-comedy The Cleaner, while Lucy Liu and Nicollette Sheridan duke it out for his attention.
The story revolves around an amnesiac janitor who’s convinced he’s a special forces commando and captain of industry by a beautiful blond, who professes to be his wife. He’s brought back to reality by a waitress who’s an undercover FBI agent as they fight the vicious forces of high-tech criminals together.
Cedric “The Entertainer” (The Honeymooners, Barbershop, Intolerable Cruelty) plays Jake, the janitor, who thinks he’s a CIA agent, code name, “The Cleaner.” Lucy Liu (Charlie’s Angels, Kill Bill: Volumes I and II) plays an FBI agent posing as Jake’s waitress/girlfriend who helps him piece together his life, and Nicollette Sheridan (Desperate Housewives, Knots Landing, Beverly Hills Ninja) is a blond seductress who attempts to elicit information from “The Cleaner” to help the villains find a hidden high-tech device.

“I liked the idea of playing a comedic version of The Bourne Identity about a guy who’s a fish out of water who believes he’s in the big world of spies and espionage,” says Cedric. “It’s a comedic approach to the “who-am-I-movies” - using The Bourne Identity as a template,” says Director Les Mayfield (The Man, American Outlaws, Flubber). “We want to make it very real, and with Cedric as the centerpiece, we decided it would be fresh, interesting and funny to use that genre, but turn it on its head.”
Says Producer Jay Stern (Rush Hour, Rush Hour 2, After the Sunset), “The comedy within this Bourne Identity context is relatable for everyone, and there’s nobody better to play it than Cedric ‘The Entertainer.’ He’s our ‘Everyman.’ We and he tailored the role for him. Lucy Liu is perfect as the waitress/FBI agent and we couldn’t be happier with Nicollette Sheridan, who’s pulling out all the stops for her part.”

Says Executive Producer A.J. Dix (The Butterfly Effect, Raise Your Voice, Lucky Number Slevin), whose company, FilmEngine owns the foreign rights with New Line Cinema distributing domestically, “Cedric cracks me up. The universality of the hilarious concept of this picture translates throughout the world.”
Starring Cedric “The Enter- tainer,” Lucy Liu and Nicollette Sheridan, The Cleaner is directed by Les Mayfield and produced by Jay Stern, Eric Rhone, Brett Ratner and Cedric “The Entertainer.” Code Name: The Cleaner is written by Robert Adetuyi and George Gallo.

Pictured above is Lucy Liu and Cedric the Entertainer in the New Line Cinema’s Code Name: The Cleaner.