If there’s one thing that the movie industry knows how to do, it’s how to compare a new project to an old one. Often times, that means describing a new film as simply “Die Hard in a [blank].” Of course, the John McTiernan 1988 action thriller starring Bruce Willis and Alan Rickman is considered a classic now, but it was sheer lightning in a bottle. Yet, this doesn’t stop others from trying to replicate the same “one against many in a single location during a tense situation” narrative that brought audiences films like Speed (1994), aka Die Hard on a bus; Lockout (2012), aka Die Hard in a space prison; and The Princess (2022), Die Hard in a medieval castle. Taking its turn at this trend is a new Martin Campbell (Casino Royale; Goldeneye) film starring Daisy Ridley (Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker; Ophelia), Clive Owen (Shoot’Em Up; Inside Man), and Taz Skylar (Boiling Point). While most easily described as Die Hard in a skyscraper, to describe Cleaner that way would be a touch dismissive (even if also accurate) as the quickly paced thriller smartly finds ways to keep the momentum up, the blood pumping, and the incredulity low while telling a timely story of unchecked corporate greed.
Daisy Ridley as Joey the action film CLEANER, a Quiver Distribution release. Photo
courtesy of Quiver Distribution.
Joey Locke (Ridley) is having a shit day. She’s late for work, her brother Michael (Matthew Tuck) has been kicked out of his home, the owners of the building she cleans wants her fired, and, oh yeah, there’s a bird strike on one of the windows left just for her. Ordinarily, hanging several stories in the air is a place of peace for Joey, but not today. Making things worse, right when she’s about to clock out, a group of masked individuals infiltrate a stockholder party and start taking hostages, leaving Joey locked outside in the process. Getting off the scaffold is the first step to her safety, but that’s only the first of the obstacles she faces as she must uncover the plot within and get her brother out before it’s too late.
A still from the action film CLEANER, a Quiver Distribution release. Photo courtesy of
Quiver Distribution.
If you’ve seen the trailer, it’s one beautiful lie after another as it sells action sequence on top of action sequence, one death-defying moment after another, making sure that we know that Joey is in serious danger regardless of what lies (or doesn’t) under her feet. The only thing that this review will confirm to be true is that the whole of Cleaner isn’t as explosive as the trailer implies, yet it’s no less tense or thrilling. Running just over 90 minutes, the script by Matthew Orton (Operation Finale), Simon Uttley (Alleycats), and Paul Andrew Williams offers a brief look at Joey’s childhood before springboarding to the present and then it’s off to the races with interpersonal relationships being established with speed (not haste, an important distinction) so as to get her to the single-location where the action is set to go down. By the time Joey gets to work, the audience understands the rhythm of the film, its energy, and the stakes for the central characters, namely Joey and Michael. When things do kick off, there’s exposition dump after exposition dump, but none of it feels like we’re being talked at within the context of each scene; rather, it all flows naturally to explain what’s going on, why it matters, and sets up where things will progress from that point forward. There’s great tension in Joey attempting to move either up or down on the scaffold, using her position to be both in the know of what’s going on and hidden from the perpetrators, while at the same time not entirely being worried for her because the film has — since the start — established that she’s more at ease in high places than the average person. I’m not saying that she’s more comfortable than John McClane (Willis) at Nakatomi Tower, but McClane would’ve lost his grip trying to climb up Joey’s tower long before she would. And we know this because of several in-world moments that we both observe of her character and acknowledge through character artifacts in her work locker, therefore making all that Joey survives believable when it matters most. This, of course, also provides great moments of fun absurdity, such as the moment shown in the trailer where Joey hangs from the scaffold by her climbing harness and, instead of being terrified, shouts with indignation into a phone at an unknown-to-us person. One might think that Joey’s predicament of being on the outside during so much chaos would generate limitations, yet, for each obstacle the narrative presents, it also smartly addresses them, creating opportunities for twists and turns that enable the tension to remain high even when things appear calm and sorted.
Even though a great deal of Joey’s story takes place outside of the tower, there’s no shortage of action throughout Cleaner. The stunts, coordinated by Matthew Stirling (Wicked Little Letters), appear plotted out to keep things as grounded as possible, even in the heightened reality of the cinematic framework and the fights, coordinated by Sina Ali (Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard), keep one leaning forward in their use of space and circumstance. Ridley is not a bulky performer, requiring that Joey be able to use her head where size or force are less effective. In the staging an execution, it’s clear that Stirling and Ali considered the best ways to incorporate what we know of Joey as a climber and military-trainee even as the film primarily focuses on her perceived-as-lesser window washer job and bereaved sibling. Because so much focus is spent on what people think Joey is, so does the audience forget what she’s capable of, making the fisticuffs, climbing, and other action set pieces involving Ridley one surprise after another. Action scenes don’t have to go on for ages to be interesting nor do they have to offer one-versus-many to dazzle, sometimes it’s simple that works best, and the intelligence on display through the stunts enables Ridley as Joey to shine.
Daisy Ridley as Joey the action film CLEANER, a Quiver Distribution release. Photo
courtesy of Quiver Distribution.
Two elements not explored at all in the trailer but are absolutely worth mentioning are (a) the presentation of Michael and (b) why the corporate invasion occurs. For the first, we learn very early in the film that Michael is neurodivergent, but, before that, we learn that he was heavily traumatized by his father’s frequent abuses. Thus, Michael struggles with others as the one-two punch of neurodivergency + trauma results in an adult male who struggles with curse words and dysregulation involving violent outburst emotionally and physically, all while also being incredibly clever and possessing a strong sense of justice with an inclination toward specificity. The character doesn’t need to be saved because his neurodivergence makes him weak, he needs to be saved because he lacks the training that Joey possesses to save himself. This is significant as far too often neurodivergency is treated as a net negative, a moral failing, or a superhero-like aspect when it’s merely a facet of a person. As someone with experience raising a neurodivergent child, many of the affectations of Tuck’s performance are authentic to the ways in which someone with this particular cocktail of body chemicals and abuse might respond when they’ve lacked the tools for regulation. For the second, well, without getting too into the weeds and into spoiler-territory, Orton, Uttley, and Williams picked right bastards as their bad guys which may seem far-fetched by some and too on-the-nose by others as corporate greed would seem like an easy lay-up until one realizes that, at least in the U.S., voters just decided to place a mostly-failed businessman (conman and convicted felon) as president and are ok with another bought-his-way-to-fame rich kid as an unelected official within the administration; so maybe folks don’t mind corporate greed the way it was a problem in the bygone Die Hard days. This is worth mentioning as Cleaner makes no bones about who the bad guys are, painting it clearly that those who harm, who violate, who obscure or deflect justice are the ones who deserve to fall from the tower in the most black-and-white, by-the-numbers fashion. If you’re ok with the cruelty, perhaps you should have a think as to why. And if you’re not ok with the cruelty (and you voted for this latest admin), you absolutely should address your cognitive dissonance.
Matthew Tuck as Michael in the action film CLEANER, a Quiver Distribution release. Photo courtesy of Quiver Distribution.
Cleaner should be a straight-forward action thriller and, yet, through the proper application of narrative intelligence, it manages to keep one guessing until the end. To this end, it completely satisfies in what it seeks to do: entertain audiences while giving them a little something to think about. Is it a little bit of happenstance that Joey is former military? Is it luck that Joey loves heights and hanging? Is it coincidental that on the very day of the incident her brother came to work with her and she had to stay late? Oh, certainly — but there’s no drama in an action thriller like this without a little bit of the usual narrative contrivance. It’s what happens after all of that which matters and, to that end, Cleaner delivers.
In theaters February 21st, 2025.
For more information, head to the official Quiver Distribution Cleaner webpage.
Final Score: 3.5 out of 5.
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Categories: In Theaters, Reviews
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