Cleaner is a 2025 Britsh action film directed by Martin Campbell (Casino Royale, Dirty Angels, The Protégé) starring Daisy Ridley, Taz Skylar and Clive Owen. It was written by Simon Uttley, Paul Andrew Williams, and Matthew Orton.
Joanna "Joey" Locke (Ridley) is a window cleaner, and former soldier, working at a high rise that gets in trouble when environmental activists take control of the building during a shareholder gala held by the corrupt and dirty Agnian Energy Company. When things turn uglier and uglier, Joey kicks herself into gear and attempts to take down the armed and dangerous activists.
Some fast action that's decently shot decorates this otherwise unremarkable and painfully average action film. First off, the entire plot makes very little sense, to the point where the forced and contrived scenario loses steam and logical integrity. This is aggravated by the fact that you don't even know what the writers are going for with their message, it seems very blatantly anti-activist at first by portraying activists (completely unrealistically) as some sort of highly organized and well funded terrorist group. Activists having these many resources and financial support (specially left wing activists) is something not only unheard of but a complete fantasy to begin with. I think the writers were also aware of the fact that the activists were simply correct, so they decided to force a "real bad guy" who takes things "to the extreme" for no real motivation outside of simply trying to portray a position so radical that it makes the radicals look tame. You see why this is confusing? Anyway, the movie tries to make things right by having an unrealistically fair ending where justice is served but it never acknowledges the type of economic and political system that let the greedy company commit crimes in the first place, so it just ends up as an "isolated case" instead of doing any real criticism.
The other thing that's weird is the inclusion of an autistic stereotype that never goes beyond that stereotype, forcing the audience to hear some irritatingly tone deaf dialogue, subjecting us to degrading scenes of autism-in-fiction tropes. That entire character was of very little use to the plot as he only helped a bit in the action and his computer knowledge wasn't even that interesting or impactful of a trait to make the difference.
Daisy Ridler is alright, giving a solid enough performance to make clear that she isn't sleepwalking through the film but she is sort of wasted in a movie with a script that's basic and nothing else. The action sequences are not bad but they are competent and flashy in a run-of-the-mill type of way that makes the spectacular factor wear off real fast, not to mention that the action basically starts about an hour in. Gotta point out that they barely take advantage of the whole "window cleaner" device and it's choreographic potential.
With too many flaws to properly recommend to everyone, Cleaner is only suggested for those who can stomach the tropes mentioned and a lack of fights and shootings during the first half. A Die Hard clone with little bite.
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