When Window Washing Becomes a Contact Sport
At this point, Hollywood’s obsession with Die Hard but [insert random location here] has gotten so predictable, I half expect the next one to be Die Hard at a PTA Meeting. And yet, here we are with Cleaner, where Daisy Ridley trades in lightsabers for squeegees and spends a lot of time dangling from the outside of a building like she’s auditioning for Cirque du Soleil: Hostage Situation Edition—which, funnily enough, is still a better career move than Jackie Chan’s Nosebleed, you know the abandoned Die Hard-but-window-washer movie that almost existed pre-9/11. Turns out, some ideas refuse to die… hard. Get it.
So what’s the setup of Cleaner? Well, Ridley plays Joey Locke, a dishonorably discharged soldier turned window cleaner (because apparently, the military to minimum-wage pipeline is real). She’s cleaning One Canada Square when a group of eco-activists (read: movie villains who talk about climate change just so we know they’re crazy) crash a corporate gala, take 300 people hostage, and threaten to blow up the building. Among the captives? Joey’s autistic brother, because what’s an action movie without some emotional stakes? Stuck outside, Joey has to climb, fight, and generally make OSHA lose its mind as she works her way inside.
Now, Cleaner does one thing undeniably right: it proves Daisy Ridley is an action star. She’s got the physicality, the intensity, and just enough John McClane energy to make you wish this movie gave her something fresher to work with. The action—when it finally happens—is solid, and there’s an emotional throughline with her brother that at least gives the movie some heart. But that’s where the praise ends, because oh boy is this film aggressively generic.
First off, let’s talk about those villains. Hollywood really loves the “eco-activists turned terrorists” trope, and it’s back in full force here. Look, I get it—bad guys need a cause—but when your villains spend more time monologuing about corporate greed than actually being threatening, it’s hard to take them seriously. The lead extremist, Noah (Taz Skylar), is all unhinged chaos, while Clive Owen’s Marcus is more “let’s be reasonable” about the whole hostage situation. It could’ve been an interesting dynamic, but Cleaner doesn’t give it enough time to breathe—probably because it’s too busy making Joey fight gravity for most of the runtime.
And that’s the big problem: the pacing is weird. Instead of the Die Hard approach, where the hero is constantly sabotaging the villains and making their lives hell, Joey spends most of the movie stuck outside on a window-washing platform. Which, cool, but watching someone be stuck doesn’t exactly scream high-energy action. The trailer promised a Die Hard-style infiltration, but instead, we get Waiting for Rescue: The Movie until the final act, when Joey finally gets inside and starts wrecking shop. By then, it’s almost too little, too late.
Martin Campbell (Casino Royale, GoldenEye) is a legend when it comes to action, but Cleaner feels like he set his autopilot to "adequate" and called it a day. It looks fine, it moves fine, but there’s no real punch to it. Even the skyscraper setting, which should be a major player in the tension, feels like wasted potential. Say what you want about Skyscraper (yes, The Rock’s other Die Hard knockoff), but at least that movie used its setting. Here, the building is just… there.
And then there’s the script, which is basically a greatest hits compilation of every action-movie cliché known to man. Hero with a tragic past? Check. Villain with just enough humanity to make you think he might redeem himself? Check. Secondary villain who’s way too eager to kill everyone? Check. Dialogue that sounds like it was written by an AI trained exclusively on 90s action movies? You better believe it.
But despite all of this, Cleaner isn’t bad—it’s just… bad fine, if that's a thing. It’s a functional, brain-off action movie that doesn’t do anything new but also doesn’t completely crash and burn. Daisy Ridley does her best to elevate it, and when the movie finally lets her go full badass, it delivers some fun moments. But would I recommend seeing this in a theater when you could just rewatch Die Hard at home? Yeah, no.
Final verdict? 2 out of 5 Bryans. Decent action, Ridley kills it, but Cleaner plays it way too safe to leave a lasting impression. Just another disposable Die Hard wannabe, wiped away as soon as the credits roll.
Comments