Cleaner

Cleaner is a blaned action movie looks alike any Grindstone Entertainment Group direct-to-video film but on a limited run in my cinema, good for you scrambled that in the cinemas watch list. With a script that recycling every idea from a variety of box-office hits. Despite a talented cast and skilled director, it's little more than a spliced-together version of better films-specifically, riffs on the Die Hard (1988) scenario, where a single hero fights off terrorists in an isolated location. Most of such copycats & borrows followed in the 1990s and innovated with unique settings, such as a Navy battleship in Under Siege (1992), a plane in Passenger 57 (1992), a mountain in Cliffhanger (1993), a bus in Speed (1994), a hockey stadium in Sudden Death (1995), and the twin White House examples from 2013, Olympus Has Fallen and White House Down. I have seen so many movies like this that the subgenre has moved beyond mere variations on a theme and entered the realm of mind-numbing cliche, mainly because studios seldom attempt to deviate from a proven formula. A great movie may yet come along and revive the concept, but Cleaner is not. This was only a one-time watch, not thinking about this movie and not going to bother having it on vod because it would consider be a bust. 5.5/10 the action is good but characters dialogue is demanding sometimes.

For the story, think very weak die hard, set in the UK with female lead. But with out the light heated moments or catchy one liners.

A run of the mill story that's been done a million times. You aren't going to remember this film next week.

That being said Daisy does well with the script she's given and the lead bad guy (Taz) is really good, would love to see him in more stuff, gotta say, he was the best character.

The action, what there is of it, is actually pretty good, the script is weak, but ok for the type of film. However the brother struggles with his lines due to how they are written and the news report clips feel jaring and look cheap, they clearly look made for the film but trying to copy UK news tv.

The film dosnt take any annoying routes, but there are a few silly bits like the snipers only putting 5 holes in the window she needs to get through and all close together. Clearly toughened safety glass, these professionals could have riddled it making it much easier to get through I also would have given her a pony tail instead of short hair, her look was just a bit off.

It was also a little anti climatic.

That being said, it's was enjoyable, the main cast were good and I made it all the way through. If you're bored and like a bit of no brainer action it's ok. But honestly don't expect to much. It's 5 out of 10 is a fair rating, it dosnt deserve more, but its not terrible.

TL;DR, not great but okay, but man do some things get to me.

Look I've seen my fair share of bad action films, believe me I'm a sucker for poorly written films.

This movie isn't good narrativly, I'll say that, but it atleast managed to do some things right that made it a step above other bad action films. It tried to take time to build its characters, it wasn't incredibly one-note, and it didn't just jump straight into the action/fights but took the time to build toward it.

The one thing that really gets me is the final confrontation. It doesn't feel like one at all. Just a quick little fight, and boom, the movie ends. Also, not really a fan of the depiction of Autism in the film. It kind of plays into the stereotype that people with Autism are just infantile.

Overall, not great but okay, but man do some things get to me.

I'm getting really quite bored now with the whole women are great, men are awful, whites are evil, blacks are good thing being shovelled down our throats these days. Is it compulsory these days to have female heroes, female, senior police officers, female presidents, female.....well anything that entails them shouting at men and showing how dominant they are in literally every film or series? If it can be black women even better.

In The Cleaner most of the villains are men and most of the heroes are women. The men are treacherous, evil and murderous whilst simultaneously misguided and weak. Even one of male police special forces guys made an error of judgement that required his female boss to scream at him and put him in his place. We didn't get to see the mayor of London but guess what? Yep....it was another she. The hero is a slip of a girl who, when she's not kicking the asses of all the bad men is recanting how she hated listening to her brother being beaten as a kid by.....have a guess...yep their dad, another evil man.

The protagonist, a chappy called Noah had the most irritating Jafakin patois that British chavs like to put on when they pretend to be black. I was waiting for him to say " innit bro!". And when they called the Met police "the feds", wow, pure cringe.

It was a silly film obviously churned out by either a cuckold or some bloke that wears rubber gimp suits and likes to be told what to do by a bossy woman with a riding crop.

I'm starting to think some of these producers and script writers have got deep seated mummy issues.

A group of eco terrorists lead by a man who makes Alan Rickman seem level headed, take over a party at the top of Agnian Tower forcing the execs to confess to all sorts of environmental crime, corruption and murder. Working late and outside the building is cleaner and ex soldier Joey (Daisy Ridley) who is determined to break in, rescue her autistic brother and save the day.

Granted this is a Die Hard rip off, but it is quite a decent one with some strong action scenes and plenty of fun nastiness to keep everyone on the edge of their seats. Daisy Ridley proves she is a good action lead once more and a fine actress and top Bond director Martin Campbell does a good job here and still hammers home a decent eco point without preaching. Not great, but not bad.