Director Martin Campbell will always be known as the man who breathed new life into the James Bond saga—twice (GoldenEye and Casino Royale), the latter arguably being the best action film of the 2000s. Now in his early 80s, Campbell remains remarkably active, releasing films almost annually (The Protégé, Memory, and Dirty Angels), all sharing a few common traits: a strong lead actor looking for a career boost (Liam Neeson, Eva Green, and now Daisy Ridley), competent action sequences, and scripts that feel ripped from the heyday of straight-to-DVD action movies—the kind you used to find buried in Walmart’s five-dollar bargain bin.
Cleaner is exactly that. A competent Die Hard riff starring Daisy Ridley that, despite its functional direction and committed lead performance, never quite rises above its derivative premise to become something memorable.
The film is set in London during an energy company’s annual gala, which is hijacked by a group of activists. The twist? Instead of being trapped inside an upper floor like John McClane, our protagonist, Joey Locke, is stuck outside—literally hanging from a window. A dishonorably discharged soldier turned window cleaner, Joey is caught in the chaos and must fight her way in. Instead of a wisecracking partner, she has a brother with autism trapped inside, in desperate need of her help.
I’m all for derivative plots if they’re executed well, which isn’t always the case here despite Campbell’s assured direction and Ridley’s committed performance. The story unfolds exactly as you’d expect—villains storm in, betrayals unfold, the police scramble outside—so it all comes down to whether the “one hero versus many” formula works. Ridley brings the necessary presence, selling both the action beats and the quieter moments with her sharp, stubborn demeanor. She’s physically convincing, charismatic, and proves yet again that she has more to offer beyond Star Wars. Her short-haired, rugged look complements her performance, helping her sell both the action with physicality and the dread with intense expressions.
Campbell’s action direction is still sharp in close-quarters fights, but where the film stumbles is in its broader execution. The police segments are stretched and uninteresting, but more disappointingly, Joey’s initial entrapment outside the building never builds any real tension. Those scenes should have been the highlight—visually thrilling, nerve-wracking, and filled with urgency. Instead, the film never fully capitalizes on the idea of someone dangling stories high, desperately trying to break in. The villains quickly realize she’s there and try to take her down, but for a while, Joey just… waits. We don’t feel the weight of her struggle. Eventually, she makes it inside, but by then, the pacing has already flattened, and things wrap up too fast—with little sense of urgency.
Clocking in at just over 90 minutes, Cleaner has the right ingredients to be a taut, no-nonsense action thriller but ultimately joins the long list of forgettable action flicks that simply don’t thrill enough. It delivers decent fight sequences and a committed lead performance but squanders its most promising idea. A Die Hard where the hero is stuck outside, desperately trying to get in? That could’ve been something special. Instead, Cleaner settles for being just another competent, passable, but ultimately disposable action movie.