Martin Campbell has been on an unusual directorial journey since directing what is largely agreed to be the best of the modern James Bond films, Casino Royale. In the nearly 20 years since then, the New Zealand-born director has stuck to seldom-watched actioners with impressive casts like The Foreigner with Jackie Chan and Pierce Brosnan, The Protégé with Maggie Q and Michael Keaton, Liam Neeson in Memory, and last year he reunited with Eva Green for Dirty Angels. Cleaner, starring Daisy Ridley, is the latest in the long list of well-acted B-movies, with scripts that don’t quite live up to expectations.
What is ‘Cleaner’ About?

Image via Quiver Distribution

Penned by Simon Uttley (Alleycats), Paul Andrew Williams (Bull, Miss You Already), and Matthew Orton (Moon Knight, Operation Finale), who are no strangers to the action genre, Cleaner uses the more extremist side of the climate change movement as the backdrop for its unfolding drama. Joey (Ridley) is a window cleaner for a large energy company located at One Canada Square in London’s financial district, Canary Wharf, who finds herself swept up in the plans of an extremist movement.
Campbell seems to be compelled by a very specific type of female lead when it comes to action films. The first few minutes of Cleaner set the scene for who Joey is as a character: she and her brother Michael (Matthew Tuck) had a rough childhood, and now as an adult, Joey finds herself as the caretaker for her older brother, who has been kicked out of yet another care home for autistic adults. Joey is forced to bring her brother along with her to work on what is, quite possibly, the worst day to bring her brother to work with her.
‘Cleaner’s Crisis Is Bigger Than the Climate

Toward the end of Cleaner’s first act, it is revealed that the activist group Earth Revolution is planning to take over Agnian Energy’s gala. At first, it seems as though Marcus Blake (Clive Owen) and the organization are only planning to use fear and intimidation to get the company’s highest-ranking members to admit to their climate crimes, but things quickly turn deadly when Noah (Taz Skylar) seizes control of the operation to fuel his far more radical goals. As Joey dangles on her pulley platform outside of the building, bearing witness to Noah’s unscrupulous tactics, she becomes an unwitting pawn in the attack and an invaluable asset to the police force racing against the clock to stop the activists from blowing up the building and all three hundred hostages.
Skylar gives a real dynamite performance in Cleaner, hot on the heels of his stand-out performance as Sanji in Netflix’s critically acclaimed live-action adaptation of One Piece. He brilliantly toes the line between Noah’s cool and calculated demeanor, which masks the desperate madness driving his actions. He is an unrepentant villain in the film, but Skylar leaves room for audiences to question what drove him to the breaking point where radical activism was his only remaining option.

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While it’s clear that those involved with the film do not think climate change is a good thing, Cleaner’s stance on climate change — and climate change activists — is murky, at best. To understand the glib remarks made throughout the film about climate change activists, one has to understand that Cleaner has been in development for at least as long as the British environmental activist group, Just Stop Oil. Ridley was attached to star in Cleaner a year after the group made headlines when activists glued themselves to the frame of an iconic Vincent Van Gogh painting. Just three months after the film began shooting, the UK government made the much-criticized decision to refer Just Stop Oil to the government’s Prevent scheme as a terrorist organization.
It seems that Cleaner is as much a reaction to the planet’s rising temperatures as it is a response to the rising tensions between activists and the UK government and citizens. While the script clearly condemns Noah for his radical views, it doesn’t necessarily offer a “good” foil to his viewpoints for uninformed audiences to walk away rooting for climate change activists. Either way, radical and mainstream ideologies seem to be put down here. The commentary is further muddied by the “good cop” Superintendent Claire Hume (smartly played by Ruth Gemmell) who allies herself with Joey throughout the crisis, whose own feelings about the climate change movement are as convoluted as the film’s.
Joey and Michael Are the Glue That Holds ‘Cleaner’ Together

Image via Quiver Distribution

At the center of the chaos is the very thing that motivates Joey to save the day: her brother Michael. Joey is faced with a scenario that many thirty-something-year-olds are starting to encounter as their parents grow older and exit their lives, and Cleaner approaches her evolving relationship with Michael with a lot of respect and nuance. Joey carries a lot of baggage, both from their troubled childhood and from her stint in the military that led to her being dishonorably discharged. And she also carries the guilt of not being a good enough sister to her brother over the years. While Michael is very much a secondary character in the film, his presence is felt throughout as Joey fights to ensure they both survive the night.
Cleaner mostly avoids falling victim to the tendency in the media to turn neurodivergence into a “superpower.” Michael does have his special interests, which ultimately prove useful in assisting Joey in stopping Noah’s schemes and securing a satisfying conclusion to the film, but it’s more so arrived at through Joey and Michael finding common ground and understanding with each other. It’s evident that a lot of love and thought went into not only the performances of these two characters but the writing and direction too. When all else fails, Joey and Michael are the glue that holds Cleaner together.
Once again, Daisy Ridley proves she has the charm and star power to make even the shakiest scripts a thoroughly enjoyable watch. Like Protégé, Cleaner has a lot of compelling storylines, action sequences, and intention, but the execution leaves something to be desired.

Cleaner

Daisy Ridley packs a punch in this status quo B-movie.

Release Date

February 21, 2025

Pros & Cons

Daisy Ridley is an endlessly charming lead and primed to fulfil the action-hero archetype in any film.
The familial relationship between Joey and Michael ultimately elevates the film beyond the messy plotlines.
Taz Skylar’s performance as the film’s villain is a memorable one, and he leaves room for audiences to question what drove him to the breaking point.

When it comes to the climate change activism plotline, Cleaner’s script leaves a lot to be desired about what it wants audiences to think about the movement.
While the script has a few surprising twists and turns, it’s a relatively uneventful B-movie that plays out exactly as you might expect it to.
Like most of Martin Campbell’s action films since Casino Royale, Cleaner relies on action archetypes to do the heavy lifting for the film’s emotional core.