Cleaner

While I had indeed not heard about the 2025 action thriller "Cleaner", when I stumbled upon it by random chance, of course I had to check it out. Especially since the movie had Clive Owen on the cast list.

The storyline in the movie was adequate. Sure, it was a watchable action thriller, but I have to say that I was left with an overwhelming sensation of having just watched a 2025 take on the 1988 movie "Die Hard". It was a bit odd that writers Simon Uttley, Paul Andrew Williams and Matthew Orton collectively couldn't muster more than a remake of the 1988 "Die Hard" movie. But hey, "Cleaner" was a watchable movie, nonetheless.

I was only familiar with leading actress Daisy Ridley and Clive Owen on the cast list. And it was a shame that Clive Owen wasn't given a bigger part to play in the movie, because he could definitely have spruced up the movie quite a bit.

There is a fair amount of action throughout the course of the movie, and it looks good. And I will say that it definitely helped to lift up the movie.

"Cleaner" is a movie worth checking out if you enjoyed the 1988 movie "Die Hard". But this time it is with a female lead.

My rating of director Martin Campbell's 2025 action thriller "Cleaner" lands on a six out of ten stars.

The plot feels like a recycled version of something that's been done countless times before, with the only twist being a nerdy character carrying a "Thor hammer," as if begging for mercy from the younger audience. There's little to no effort put into character development, so we couldn't care less about the protagonist or any of the characters, for that matter. There's no suspense, no mystery, just a predictably failed attempt at being a pure action film, which also fell flat. It's hard to find anything positive to say, but here's an attempt: the villain and the cop lady somewhat tried to carry the rest of the cast, but their efforts hardly made a difference. Picture quality was good, lol. You can invite a girl over and play this when you are not really interested in watching. This is one of those movies where you wonder why they even bothered making it, and you're relieved it wasn't any longer.

I'm a big fan of Daisey and also Clive Owen and the Director Martin Campbell (Casino Royal) - but this lame rip off script has little character development or arc - and instead it's just another Hollyweird movie that swaps out Bruce Willis for a chick with a gun. Daisey definitely deserves better scripts as this B script is a direct to video with no real substance and the actors cleaned out Hollywood for a nice pay check. Maybe the suits will learn to make original scripts instead of more rip offs. What's next Ramba - the female Stallone warrior.

At least Clive Owen was smart enough to take a fast paycheck and disappear early in the story so go in with super low expectations and just laugh at the preposterous plot but the action is solid if you can stop laughing at how silly the story actually transpires with one dimensional main character and silly eco terror villains from a cracker box. Maybe AI generated script.

Good news is that Michael Stratham ( Mechanic series) or Charlize Theron ( Atomic series) has nothing to worry about from competition from this lame film.

5 stars for the lead actors and director.

Cleaner is a blaned action movie looks alike any Grindstone Entertainment Group direct-to-video film but on a limited run in my cinema, good for you scrambled that in the cinemas watch list. With a script that recycling every idea from a variety of box-office hits. Despite a talented cast and skilled director, it's little more than a spliced-together version of better films-specifically, riffs on the Die Hard (1988) scenario, where a single hero fights off terrorists in an isolated location. Most of such copycats & borrows followed in the 1990s and innovated with unique settings, such as a Navy battleship in Under Siege (1992), a plane in Passenger 57 (1992), a mountain in Cliffhanger (1993), a bus in Speed (1994), a hockey stadium in Sudden Death (1995), and the twin White House examples from 2013, Olympus Has Fallen and White House Down. I have seen so many movies like this that the subgenre has moved beyond mere variations on a theme and entered the realm of mind-numbing cliche, mainly because studios seldom attempt to deviate from a proven formula. A great movie may yet come along and revive the concept, but Cleaner is not. This was only a one-time watch, not thinking about this movie and not going to bother having it on vod because it would consider be a bust. 5.5/10 the action is good but characters dialogue is demanding sometimes.

TL;DR, not great but okay, but man do some things get to me.

Look I've seen my fair share of bad action films, believe me I'm a sucker for poorly written films.

This movie isn't good narrativly, I'll say that, but it atleast managed to do some things right that made it a step above other bad action films. It tried to take time to build its characters, it wasn't incredibly one-note, and it didn't just jump straight into the action/fights but took the time to build toward it.

The one thing that really gets me is the final confrontation. It doesn't feel like one at all. Just a quick little fight, and boom, the movie ends. Also, not really a fan of the depiction of Autism in the film. It kind of plays into the stereotype that people with Autism are just infantile.

Overall, not great but okay, but man do some things get to me.