Cleaner

The answer is this film. Make the two stars do the bare minimum so you don't have to pay them too much? I don't really get it tho. Like all the money went to the production and Campbell? Clive Owen essentially pulls a Bruce Willis here. Total screen time probably didn't exceed 5 minutes and you got Daisy Ridley outside of the building for 3/4 of the film, doing nothing when she should've just did something to begin with and save us all the stupid ass runtime. This movie would be over in 40 minutes. I'm rambling along here cuz there's a minimum characters required to post a review apparently. I don't write reviews that often...

I'm joking, of course. Looks a lot like someone was channeling Die Hard when they wrote the script. Every time I thought they weren't going to take from that movie, they found another homage...

Ridley is not bad as an action star. I'd watch another movie with her in it. Clive Own, who wasn't in the movie enough to warrant third billing, was fine. Matthew Tuck, on the other hand, was unbelievable as the autistic brother. I think that distracted me a lot.

It had a predictable ending, one I will not divulge here. All in all, not particularly good. All in all, not particularly bad...

See this one after you've seen every other movie, just for closure...

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.

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.

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.