In Martin Campell’s latest movie, “Cleaner,” Joey has always had a knack for climbing. As a child, she escaped her parents’ loud shouting matches by climbing up and away from the sound, climbing outside the family high rise’s window to relax in the night air. Even at that tender age, she was unafraid of heights, a seemingly inconsequential detail until years later, her line of work–she is, true to the film’s title, a window cleaner–now calls for her to hang on the side of buildings at a dizzying height above the streets below. It is now present-day London. Joey (Daisy Ridley) is running late for work and just received news her brother Michael (Matthew Tuck) has lost his place in a care facility. But her bad day is about to get worse when she (finally) arrives for work and leaves her brother in the care of a security guard. As she contends with an irate boss and the dirty business of cleaning windows many stories up, an eco-terrorist organization strikes, taking control of the executives at their gala and demanding they confess to their ecological crimes. Perhaps the only way to save the hundreds of hostages inside now lies in the hands of one of the building’s window cleaners with a specialized military background and her brother to rescue.
If it sounds a little silly and a bit of a stretch, that’s because “Cleaner” knows it’s a bit much and revels in its audacity. Written by Simon Uttley, “Cleaner” is a concept action movie with a bit of heart and of course, plenty of high-flying antics from an impossible situation. The narrative is heavily indebted to “Die Hard,” with nods of the vertigo inducing terror of falling to one’s death from a tall building in crisis like “The Towering Inferno” and the claustrophobic terror of one person fighting the odds to save their life and others like “The Phone Booth.” The action, both inside and outside of the skyscraper, does what it sets out to do: thrill the audience. It’s certainly Campbell’s specialty, after other action classics like “Goldeneye,” “Casino Royale” and “The Mask of Zorro,” and he adds a steady hand to what could have easily felt like a schlocky action movie. He really leans over the edge of the heights, routinely reminding the audience the peril and predicament Joey has found herself in hundreds of feet in the air. But because the script makes her seem like she’s almost too resourceful, there’s almost no doubt she’ll pull through, undermining the narrative’s tension as the cheesy dialogue sometimes mangles the pulse-quickening energy.
Like Campbell, it’s nice to see Ridley back in action. She’s got the knack for it, delivering her fight choreography with a stiff upper lip and a determined scowl. She’s not emotional or sarcastic like John McClane in the Die Hard movies. She’s unflappably cool until it comes to her relationship with her brother, Michael. Despite the action movie trappings, Ridley and Tuck share quite a few tender moments as siblings trying to protect one another – they are all their characters have in this world and their performances show that. Meanwhile, Taz Skylar’s appearance as Noah, the self-appointed leader of the eco terrorist group, adds something of a wild card element, maybe not the terrifyingly controlling Hans Gruber in “Die Hard,” but a chaotic energy whose control is always slipping away, his reckless energy only growing after turning on his own members to push his agenda (even if that agenda, an anti-humanist one, is a bit on the nose).
The story’s conflict within the eco terrorism group is perhaps one of the film’s weaker elements, as it presents this argument between choosing violence and non-violence to send a message as something of a quick bump on the road to the way to more action (read: violence wins). Similarly disappointing is Clive Owens’ short lived reunion with his “Ophelia” co-star Ridley, as his character does not last long enough to boost the action sequences that follow.
While “Cleaner” may not be one of the most refined action movies this year, it has a bit more to offer than most, especially when it comes to Campbell’s thoughtful direction and Ridley’s committed performance. If you can get past the fact that her character is yes, a window cleaner with specialized military training, the murky terrorist politics, and the cheap action line deliveries, maybe you can let yourself freefall into the death-defying spectacular Ridley and Campbell created with a level of sweaty stoicism John McClane would envy.
