Cleaner

Directed by Martin Campbell, who returns to the fray after his last film, Dirty Angels, in 2024. This time, the New Zealander redefines what has been a bittersweet career. He delivers a decent action film, without any flash, with likable characters and villains you'll hate, which I think is the film's turning point.

The cast features Daisy Ridley as the film's main protagonist, in a rather bland but charismatic role, something that defines the actress's career. Also in the cast are Taz Skylar, Clive Owen, and a couple of minor supporting characters. The film's journey relies on the charisma of its cast, which allows you to connect somewhat with what's happening. The truth is, the film is quite light on the action, but it has a touch of tension that keeps us from getting too bored.

It's a film that lacks ambition, but it has interesting ideas that don't quite come together. It's true that it attempts to imitate Die Hard in several ways, but it lacks the charisma that the film starring Bruce Willis offers. Here, the charisma comes from the lead actress, but it's not enough to elevate the overall plot with which Cleaner aims to win us over.

We're left with a film that will give you a good time in front of the screen if you don't have high expectations for what you're watching. If you're expecting mind-blowing entertainment, unfortunately, this won't be the ideal film for that. Still, it's a film that achieves its moments and has a certain visual appeal and ideas that allow the film to end with an acceptable and satisfactory result. It's forgettable, sure, but it's also suitable for a family weekend without high expectations.

In 1988, one of the best action movies ever was released - Die Hard, which was groundbreaking, and is still fun to watch today.

Since it was released 37 years ago, many movies have tried to replicate its success. Some have succeeded, some have not.

The movie Cleaner tries to be the "Die Hard" of 2025, but it fails to do so.

The plot is not convincing or interesting enough, nor are the few action moments.

Despite everything, I did like the idea that the heroine of the film is a window cleaner. This is undoubtedly the film's strong point, but that's where it ends.

In conclusion, I would not recommend running to watch this movie. The acting is mediocre, there is not much action, and overall it is a movie that you can skip.

I like Daisy Ridley a lot, and I think she does her best to carry the film, but I just found myself rolling my eyes far too often to enjoy this mess.

I can only suspend disbelief to a certain point, and above every other problem is this... How does everything in the first half of the film happen EXACTLY where the one window cleaner happens to be. This is a four-sided skyscraper!!! Also, people have regular conversations through the glass, one canister of gas in a hallway is enough to knock out everyone on every floor, people travel multiple floors in no time at all, SOOOO many clichès, etc. And as much as I rooted for Daisy to win, it's hard to feel sorry for the hostages.

There was some fun action, though nothing outstanding, and it was capably directed in a way that was very easy to follow. Also, I really enjoyed Matthew Tuck as her brother. Could've been a very annoying character, but he grounded it enough for me.

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.

The plot feels like a recycled version of something that's been done countless times before, with the only twist being a nerdy character carrying a "Thor hammer," as if begging for mercy from the younger audience. There's little to no effort put into character development, so we couldn't care less about the protagonist or any of the characters, for that matter. There's no suspense, no mystery, just a predictably failed attempt at being a pure action film, which also fell flat. It's hard to find anything positive to say, but here's an attempt: the villain and the cop lady somewhat tried to carry the rest of the cast, but their efforts hardly made a difference. Picture quality was good, lol. You can invite a girl over and play this when you are not really interested in watching. This is one of those movies where you wonder why they even bothered making it, and you're relieved it wasn't any longer.