Director Martin Campbell has had a rocky go of it following his extraordinary 2006 James Bond gem “Casino Royale”. Since then he has helmed one notoriously bad superhero movie and five mostly forgettable action thrillers. His latest film is called “Cleaner” and unfortunately it’s yet another action thriller that doesn’t do much to change course.
It wouldn’t be a stretch to categorize “Cleaner” as another “Die Hard” knock-off. In fact it fits the description closer than many. It has a skyscraper, terrorists, hostages, and an out-of-place protagonist who is forced to take action. Of course we know as Oscar Wilde first uttered, “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery”. But a movie needs to add some flavor of its own to make it stand out. And that’s something “Cleaner” struggles mightily to do.
In a somewhat strange bit of casting, Daisy Ridley plays Joey Locke, a dishonorably discharged former soldier who now works cleaning and servicing windows on a state-of-the-art London skyscraper. While on her way to work, Joey gets a call that her autistic brother Michael (Matthew Tuck) is being kicked out of his ninth care facility, this time for hacking into their computers.
With nowhere to leave Michael, Joey takes him with her to work at the ultramodern Agnian Tower, home of Agnian Energy which is ran by two egotistical and corrupt brothers, Geoffrey Milton (Rufus Jones) and Gerald Milton (Lee Boardman). Unfortunately for Joey and Michael, she picked a really bad day to take her brother to work.
As the Milton brothers host a swanky gala on one of the building’s top floors, the party is interrupted by armed radical ecoterrorists calling themselves Earth Revolution. The group’s leader, Marcus Blake (Clive Owen) is an idealist intent on exposing Agnian’s host of crimes including killing ecosystems with illegal dumping and permanently silencing opposing voices. Among Marcus’ squad is the unhinged Noah (Taz Skylar) who believes violence is a much better way of making their point. It doesn’t take long before the tension between the two reaches its boiling point.
To no surprise violence erupts, hostages are taken, threats are issued, and the police gather at the scene under the lead of Superintendent Claire Hume (Ruth Gemmell). Meanwhile trapped high above on a window cleaning cradle is Joey, desperately trying to make her way inside to save the wandering Michael. In true John McClane fashion, Joey becomes a thorn in the terrorists side although not an especially convincing one.
Written by the trio of Simon Uttley, Paul Andrew Williams, and Matthew Orton, the not-so-original story plays out to a chorus of clichés and rehashed plot points. It’s also riddled with hilariously hokey dialogue and some unintentionally outrageous scenes (my favorite may be Joey hanging by her fingertips onto the exterior of a skyscraper some 1,000 feet in the sky while casually carrying on a phone conversation about her past).
Ridley deserves credit for putting every ounce of herself into her role. And it’s great seeing Clive Owen back on the big screen for the first time in years. Sadly she can’t shake the sense of being miscast and he doesn’t get near enough screen time. But in reality the movie’s issues run deeper and they’re considerably harder to overlook. It’s silly, short on much-needed thrills, and a rehash of other movies that simply did it better. “Cleaner” releases in theaters February 21st.
VERDICT – 2 STARS
Keith & the Movies 