There is no rule that says that a blatant ripoff of a vastly superior film can’t still be fun, especially when its star seems more game than she’s ever been, even in her most famous role.
Such is the case for Cleaner, in which Daisy Ridley (the Star Wars sequel trilogy) plays Joey Locke, a dishonorably discharged soldier who now cleans windows in present-day London for the corporate headquarters of an energy company that claims to be good for what ails the world’s environmental issues. She has a brother (Michael Tuck) who’s on the spectrum, so it’s important she not lose her job because she’s in charge of taking care of him. But Joey sometimes can’t help but shoot her mouth off, even to one of the heads of the company, who is being unusually cruel to a pregnant member of the cleaning crew.
While Joey is suspended 50 stories up on the outside of the building, an extremist environmental group led by Marcus (Clive Owen) takes over the building during the company’s annual gala and seizes about 300 hostages in the process. All they want is for some of those in charge to confess their environmental crimes on camera and then the siege will be done.
But one of the terrorists, Noah (Taz Skylar), who has been pretending to be a fellow window-washer with Joey, changes the rules and dynamics of the activists’ demands, and those who don’t fall in line with him get eliminated. Meanwhile, poor Joey is stuck on a scaffolding trying to send signals to the police below and somehow get in the building to neutralize the situation without getting anyone, especially her brother, killed in the process.
The film is an absolute, action-packed scream, with barely an ounce of originality to speak of, but sometimes the familiar feels like comfort food. My biggest criticism is that Clive Owen is taken out of play way too early. He’s always been a stabilizing force in the action movies he’s a part of, and when he shows up, he’s clearly the guy in charge of these activists—the man with the plan. And as soon as he’s gone, his minions get a whole lot less interesting. The exception is possibly Flavia Watson’s hacker character Zee, who isn’t happy with the leadership change but also values her life enough to know that going with the flow is the best way to stay breathing. Even in its familiarity, Cleaner has a couple of original turns, mostly in the way Ridley plays Joey. And while the film is far from great, it is incredibly watchable.
The film is now playing in theaters.
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