Cleaner is a well-performed action B-movie with a poignant message despite its underwhelming script. The film follows highly trained British ex-soldier Joey Locke (Daisy Ridley) as she window cleans for a (performatively) sustainable corporation known as the Agnian Company in London to take financial care of herself and her autistic, extra care-needing brother Michael (Matthew Tuck). One day, after showing up to work late due to Michael getting thrown out of his ninth assisted care placement—for hacking their servers after discovering they’re stealing money from him and Joey—Agnian CEO-owner brothers Geoffrey (Rufus Jones) and Gerald Milton (Lee Boardman) throw their annual gala to discuss with shareholders and board members the company’s progress. Instead of announcing good news, however, the room is quickly gassed. A group of green-masked men presumed to be the gala’s late performers reveal themselves as other building workers like Joey, including her window cleaning co-worker Noah (Taz Skylar), led by extreme environmental/human rights activist Marcus (Clive Owen). Forcing confessions out of these CEOs with bombs everywhere as backup, Joey has to scale the building, kill bad guys, and save everyone—all while still getting the truth out—before hundreds die.

Cleaner‘s messaging needs to be clarified before further review is conducted. This is not just some dumb B-movie; it’s a warning. It warns the real CEOs, owners, landlords, and other greedy types: the world has had enough. Luigi Mangione may have been an isolated incident in the U.S., but the anger is growing. People are dying because healthcare costs are rising and insurance is denying; food, home supplies, and other basic needs are getting increasingly expensive; buying a home is a pipe dream as prices have stayed elevated or increased since COVID-19. This lack of affordability is NOT because of immigrants, Biden-era policies, DEI, or trans people being in sports. It is because the people at the top do not give a flying fuck about anyone else and never will. They do about making more money and building their power, though. While many will not give this film the slack it deserves, Cleaner delivers the most realistic-unrealistic scenario: people fighting back against the powerful however they can. Marcus and Noah’s conflicting ideologies are the most illusory of this idea.

Marcus is there to get the truth out non-violently (or at least non-fatally). As a tied-down Gerald and Geoffrey call him a coward, he reminds them that he and his crew have faced death and worse: “Did you say cowards? We’ve stood before bulldozers in the Amazon, been shot at by whalers, seen our brothers and sisters killed for what they believe in. What are you? You’re a fat, ugly man in a suit.” Poor and working-class souls who face the most challenging problems under similarly grueling conditions across Earth suffer disproportionately more than any human should; they’re anything but cowards, and Marcus demonstrates that through such a takeover. Noah believes in the “truth” as well, so to speak—”without the truth, no one will [listen], but with the truth, enough will”—but he believes humanity’s extinction is necessary for Earth to heal: “… You still think people are the solution? People are the problem. I mean look at me,” Noah tensely cackles upon shooting one of his crew. This dichotomy between legitimate, legal accountability and the potentially evolutionary, more existential problem—humans’ death being a natural part of the globe’s lifecycle—is irresistible in the few moments the writing matches the far superior acting of Cleaner’s cast. Something needs to give in the U.S. and global orders at large for people’s lives to improve, and the answer lies somewhere between Marcus and Noah.

Beyond this intriguing dichotomy, Joey and Michael’s mix in it, and some tight Ridley-centered action, Cleaner is a cheap riff on Die Hard and other movies of that action-strategy sub-genre. The script is less appealing than folding boxes; the editing and directions keep things moving, but nothing out of the ordinary; most of the characters are defined by singular traits, whether that be “stick it to the man” or “MONEY MONEY MONEY”; Joey and Michael’s relationship is bountiful, but it gets restricted to the film’s opening and whenever Joey needs gets annoyed by Michael’s imperfections; Joey nearly dies several times, many of which she probably shouldn’t have—from dangling on the building’s belay belt or getting almost bombed out of existence but surviving by climbing 10-20 feet around the building’s corner. Even the film’s more propulsive components are muddled in, feeling more impactful in thought than on screen. Thus, Cleaner is a pretty dirty, nearly halfhearted action-thriller, but it’s well-performed by Daisy Ridley and co. and has a few scornful ideas. This could be a hit for action, B-movie, and Ridley fans, but for everyone else, Cleaner‘s pretty mindless.

Opens Friday, 2/21 @ AMC Boston Common