The Janitor: Much Potential Much Missed

Finally watched The Janitor. The actors were not lacking and overall the story was effective in one seense – because it made one wonder where the story was taking us and it did finally got there. And it was at the ending though that undid the Janitor. It was not 2014s On the Job.

The premise was interesting enough a terrible crime the police resorting to eliminating the guilty through a disgraced policemen with a guiding righteousness that justified his imolation of the guilty. But what if they are not? What if they are not guilty? What if the means of getting the intel was flawed and in the unreliable?

Again interesting starting point. A simple starting point that would have made a good story and driven home the point about the use of torture, justice and extra-judicial killings.

But it did not.

Instead what was a convoluted route that did not reward the viewer with a satisfying resolution. It lacked the focus: too much was spent on the torture scenes, to a point of trivializing it; too much was spent on the family dynamics of hitman; and even on personal tragedies that afflicted the hitman it brought no direct effect on the story. Expensive ribbons on a gift that needed no ribbons.

In the end it failed the film because of too many useless things failed to deliver on its promise: It was not a clean sweep for The Janitor.