Critics these days are often accused – usually by angry commenters who liked something that was reviewed harshly and who feel they must assert, to themselves and the world, that their opinion is right – of thinking too hard about movies. This isn’t meant to be art, they say. This is entertainment. That remark is typically followed by a reminder that whatever popcorn flick isn’t Citizen Kane, or 12 Angry Men, or The Godfather, as if those titles became household names by appealing only to one’s higher sensibilities.
I have to admit, these embittered readers have us pegged; what is criticism if not the art of thinking too hard? But this neat divide between art and entertainment doesn’t exist, and even if it did, one isn’t more deserving of critique than the other. Critics review films out of love for the medium. To give everything the stress test that is close attention is to believe that any film has the potential to be great. And the joy of thinking too hard about movies is that, inevitably, you find ones that really deserve it.
I didn’t start my Cleaner review this way because it’s one of those (it isn’t), but because it’s amusingly transparent about ripping off Die Hard – a movie so rewarding of close attention that over many attempts to replicate its magic, Hollywood’s actually been able to prove that great entertainment is as much an art as a science. I could feel Cleaner working to turn my brain off, to keep me in the moment, because to think about it at all is to end up thinking about Die Hard. But there are worse things, right?
Cleaner Keeps Things Moving But Can Get Heavy-Handed
A Little More Trust In The Audience Would’ve Been Welcome
The film begins in the past, for a brief moment, as a young girl climbs over her dirty kitchen like it’s a rock face. When her family bursts into the apartment, her father yelling indistinct abuses at her brother, she climbs out the window, sits on the ledge, and drowns out the noise with music. In the present, Joey (Daisy Ridley) hasn’t lost her ease with heights. She’s a window cleaner at one of the tallest skyscrapers in London, though not for much longer if she can’t make it to work on time today.
Ridley gets the opportunity to show us Joey in these moments, and the camera keeps our attention on her.
Interfering with that is Michael (Matthew Tuck), her brother who is neurodivergent and is being kicked out of his umpteenth care home this morning, after having (anonymously but obviously) hacked their system to expose their fraud. Joey isn’t really accustomed to being there for Michael, and she’s very reluctant to agree to even one night of crashing at her place. But for now, she has no choice but to bring him to work with her and sort it all out when she gets off.
Cleaner moves through all this set-up briskly, in a way that already sets brain-on and brain-off viewing at war. These scenes all have dramatic integrity, in that they’re built around real, in-the-moment character conflict, and we’re learning who Joey is as a person as we go. Her confrontation with the care home manager; her charged back-and-forth with the petty boss she hates; her willingness to talk back to the company’s piggish executive for a disparaging comment about a pregnant maid. Ridley gets the opportunity to show us Joey in these moments, and the camera keeps our attention on her.
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At the same time, the script is signposting little moments of economic storytelling that are hilariously obvious. Little Joey’s kitchen climb? That’s so we’re not in disbelief when she has to scale a building as an adult. How do we know Michael is neurodivergent? Why, the word “AUTISM” written in big, red letters behind him during the care home meeting, of course. And did you hear Joey’s colleague mention she was ex-military? I wonder if that will come up…
Then, Daisy Ridley Does A Die Hard
Let’s Be Honest, That Doesn’t Sound Bad
All this prepares us for the inevitable when the real plot begins. Tonight, this building hosts the shareholders party for Agnian Energy, and that party’s destined to be hijacked. A group of environmental activists, led by Marcus Blake (Clive Owen, in full Inside Man mode), intend to expose the crimes of this company and the powerful people who helped cover them up. Not everyone seems totally aligned on how to go about this, however – some of the infiltrators are a little more comfortable racking up a body count than others.
At just 96 minutes (far less than the 1988 film’s 132), there’s hardly even time to be bored.
As all this goes down, Joey, forced to stay late and work the hour she missed, glimpses the takeover from the outside. She even recognizes Noah (Taz Skylar), a fellow window cleaner and presumed friend, among the activists. Their dedicated hacker, Zee (Flavia Watson), has seized the room that happens to control Joey’s lift, stranding her. And, of course, Michael is still in the building. It soon becomes as clear to her as it’s always been to us that the only course of action is to do a Die Hard.
Cleaner doesn’t copy that movie’s plot exactly, thankfully, but we all know what will happen from here. It’s not really a film of many surprises, even when it tries to be. It’s put together well, directed with clarity by Martin Campbell, but all this shameless familiarity should be disqualifying to a critic. I don’t doubt it will be for many others.
But you know what? Cleaner is a pretty good reminder of how fun it can be to watch someone with movie star charisma do a Die Hard. I was never bored; at just 96 minutes (far less than the 1988 film’s 132), there’s hardly even time to be bored. It’s not the next great action movie, and if not for this review, it probably wouldn’t have stayed on my mind past the day I saw it. But if you’re really looking for some brain-off diversion to pair with your theater snacks, you could do a lot worse.
Cleaner is rated R for violence, language throughout and brief drug use.
Cleaner
5/10
- Release Date
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February 21, 2025
- Director
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Martin Campbell
- Writers
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Matthew Orton, Simon Uttley, Paul Andrew Williams
- Daisy Ridley brings the right movie star quality
- Directed with clarity by Martin Campbell
- It’s fun to watch someone do a Die Hard
- Script is guilty of some distractingly obvious seed-planting
- Never gets ahead of the audience
- You could always watch Die Hard at home instead