Cleaner

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'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.

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.

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.

Corporate greed, eco-activism, terrorism, and a window-cleaner ex-military girl taking down the bad guys who seized her building.

I'll be brief.

This movie is neither particularly fun nor satisfying. The premise shows promise but reveals its hand too early and quickly loses steam. The action is serviceable, the villains are a yawn, and the characters, their motivations, dialogue, and their resolution are all too generic to leave a lasting impression. On top of that, the pacing drags in places, the ending fails to deliver, and the emotional beats between the siblings never quite land. Does it attempt to make a statement about environmental destruction and corporate accountability? If so, it does so in the dullest way possible.

Die Hard, this is not, so the comparisons are moot. Here, the villains hold all the cards (they control the police, the building, and the hostages) and yet the heroine somehow becomes an inexplicable problem for them. There's a script issue, but also an execution problem, as Miss Ridley is competent in the role, but her casual attitude while committing "action" feels jarring and undermines any sense of real danger.

At least it is short (90 minutes, and it feels even shorter). Watch if you want a generic action movie.