CLEANER - Mark Reviews Movies

Cleaner, Quiver Distribution

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Review by Mark Dujsik | February 20, 2025

After everyone does so many variations on a tried-and-sometimes-true formula, it's probably inevitable that we'd find ourselves back at where it began. Simon Uttley's screenplay for Cleaner takes the now-standard plot of a one-person army facing up against a team of criminals in a single location, but this time, it's set in a skyscraper—again.

There are a few twists to that familiar setup, though, and they make a bit of difference in this clever riff on material that could have attempted to coast on its premise and hoped for the best. No, Uttley and director Martin Campbell have a few tricks up their sleeves, and it's just enough for this film to stand on its own merits and without too much harping on about how we've definitely seen this story before.

The first distinction is its protagonist, a former military woman named Joey, played by Daisy Ridley with a cool charm that gradually transforms into a hardened sense of determination. It must be tough for an actor to come out the other end of some of the biggest movies in the world and try to find some way not to be pigeonholed by that, but Ridley keeps doing interesting things with her still-blossoming career. Here, her performance makes a good case that she could be an action star, but let's not start trying to force her into a slightly different box than the one she's clearly working to put on a shelf.

Her Joey, who has a childhood love—or, better, means of escaping troubling situations—for heights, works as a window cleaner at a fancy skyrise in the heart of London. It's home to residential apartments and the offices of an energy company, but none of that means much to Joey. She just needs the job to survive and to spend the day hanging from the side of the building, dozens of floors above the street, in order to clear her head of all the problems and complications facing her.

The suspense starts almost immediately upon Joey's late arrival at work. Then again, that might just be a healthy fear of heights talking, because the character, unknown to her, will spend probably a bit more than half of the film outside the skyscraper—either connected to a line tied to the roof or in an automated cradle that rises and descends like an open-air elevator. Obviously, most of these sights are achieved with visual effects, considering how much peril Joey faces while stuck on the outside of the building as chaos erupts inside it. They're convincing, though—dizzyingly so at times.

As suggested by the broad description at the top, the plot sees a group infiltrate the tower, specifically a big, swanky gala being held by the energy company's executives and board members. They take the bigwigs hostage, demand that they confess how they've been covering up continued pollution and environmental devastation under the guise of green initiatives, and plan to broadcast those admissions to the entire world. The leader of the group is played by Clive Owen, not as a mere criminal or killer or even one who wants to harm people, but as a man with a sincere belief in his cause.

He doesn't make for a particularly good villain, in other words, and that, perhaps, is where the first big surprise of the screenplay comes into play. One would think casting a recognizable actor like Owen in this role means that his character will be prominent throughout the story. Without saying too much, a series of increasingly dramatic exits for the guy, though, lets us know that both the real villain and the filmmakers mean business here. It's a daring move, at least.

The actual bad guy is quite the opposite of Owen's character. He's played by Taz Skylar and is a true believer in the worst sense of that phrase—a self-proclaimed "anti-humanist" who believes the means are the same as his desired ends of saving the planet by eliminating humanity. He's a nasty customer, which isn't necessarily what material like these needs, although it does raise the stakes as soon as he starts putting explosive vests on hostages and connects a dead-man switch to his wrist.

All the while, Joey is stuck outside the building—hearing what's unfolding over her earpiece, witnessing it through the windows as she climbs up and down the side of the building, and worrying about her brother Michael (Matthew Tuck), who is hiding inside. She's not helpless out there, but she is incapable of actually providing much help. Uttley finds several neat ways to make her more active, however, including the villain trying to frame her for what's happening, Joey contacting the lead cop (played by Ruth Gemmell) on the ground (The detective is, surprisingly and thankfully, smart enough to actually see through the villain's ruse almost immediately), and our hero eventually finding a way to get inside the building herself.

Because of our hanging-by-a-thread protagonist, the tension is constant. Because the filmmakers continue to find methods to make Joey an increasingly active participant in the rescue mission, the action remains dynamic.

Campbell's a long-timer in the realm of making action movies, and he shows a steady but deft hand in staging these setpieces. They're as varied as Joey dangling from the side of the building, where gravity and gunfire and the unexpected weight of a dead body must be contended with, and more traditional fights/shootouts. Cleaner serves as a fun, old-fashioned actioner with a few crafty moves to make it distinct and prevent it from becoming too familiar.

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