Cleaner

Cleaner is a British attempt at making a Die Hard movie, with Daisy Ridley being the person who needs to stop terrorists who have taken over a building.

Joanna “Joey” Locke (Ridley) is a woman who leads a chaotic life. A series of unfortunate events leads Joey to be late to work, forced to take her autistic brother, Michael (Matthew Tuck), to work, and made to work late cleaning windows at a London skyscraper. This happens to be the day when a group of eco-terrorists takes control of the building and holds 300 people hostage. Joey ends up trapped outside and is the only person able to intervene.

Die Hard clones are common and have been good films in their own right, like Under Siege, Speed, and Sudden Death. Die Hard has a simple template that can be used in many settings, has inventive and entertaining action scenes, and memorable characters. Cleaner seems to have the potential to be at least a fun Die Hard offering, considering who was involved. Cleaner starred Daisy Ridley in her first action role since the Star Wars sequel trilogy, directed by Martin Campbell, the man who rebooted the Bond series twice, and the screenwriters included Paul Andrew Williams (London to Brighton, The Cottage, Bull) and Matthew Orton (Moon Knight). What was delivered was a film that would have been dumped in the bargain bin.

For anyone who’s expecting an action-packed experience, Cleaner will disappoint. For most of the film, Joey was stuck outside the building. The action only happened in the third act, and most of it was within a confined space. The fights and shoot-outs were fine but unremarkable. For a so-called action film, this was lacking.

Die Hard and most of its copycats had their protagonists within the building or facility when it was taken over. This allowed for action to be peppered throughout the runtime, enhancing the drama, entertainment, and tension. In films like Die Hard, Sudden Death, and Air Force One, there were many fights and scenarios that the heroes had to overcome. Cleaner was hampered by having the main character stuck outside.

Joey’s confinement to the outside made the film more ridiculous and contrived than it needed to be. One of the dumbest moments in the film involved Joey being told to shoot a gun at the pedestrians below and forcing the police to come onto the scene. The characters were idiots in this situation, and it became really preposterous when it was revealed that Joey was an expert marksman with a pistol, despite being hundreds of feet in the air.

Cleaner was more blatant with how it ripped off Die Hard than other copycat films. It was set in a skyscraper where wealthy elites were having a party, while the main character was a working-class hero. Other Die Hard-style films at least have some variation to make the source of their inspiration seem less obvious. Due to Cleaner being so derivative of Die Hard it leads to thoughts about watching the 1988 classic instead. Amazingly, Cleaner had three credited screenwriters.

Cleaner had a $25 million budget, but it looked like a cheap straight-to-DVD film. The CGI work was poor, essentially when the green screen was used, or when there was an explosion. There have been great action films made on a similar budget or less, like The Raid movies, John Wick, and Monkey Man, so a lack of money shouldn’t be an excuse.

There was an attempt to make Cleaner a topical film by looking at Greenwashing. The villains in the film were eco-terrorists who set out to expose a green energy company for their hypocrisy. They made money from polluting the planet, which made them seem like Captain Planet villains. Greenwashing is a serious issue, but in Cleaner, it was an afterthought.

Cleaner was a lesser offering in the big aisle of Die Hard-style action films. There wasn’t enough invention in the action, character, or story to make it stand out from the pack.