Prime Video Scores a Breakout Hit With 97-Minute Die Hard-Style Thriller
2025’s next big action swing traps 300 hostages in a high-rise — and leaves an unassuming cleaner to fight their way out.
Every generation gets its own version of Die Hard, and now it’s Daisy Ridley’s turn to dangle from a skyscraper and make life hell for a bunch of desperate baddies. Prime Video’s latest action thriller, Cleaner, doesn’t bother pretending it invented the formula—trapped hero, impossible odds, one increasingly knackered protagonist—but honestly, when done right, that’s half the fun.
Die Hard—with Daisy Ridley and Some Serious London Skyline
Here’s the premise: Daisy Ridley plays Joanna 'Joey' Locke, a highly trained soldier who’s ended up on the wrong side of the army’s rules and is now a window cleaner. Yes, really. She’s scaling the glass in London when a group of eco-extremists picks the worst possible time to seize the building. Suddenly 300 people are taken hostage at an energy company gala—and Joey’s stuck outside, about 50 floors up, with precious little between her and the pavement.
And because every action hero needs a personal stake, Joey’s younger brother is among those trapped inside. You know how this goes: Ridley’s hanging by her fingertips, the villains are making threats, and it’s all unravelling faster than a cheap suit in the rain.
In the director’s seat, they’ve brought in Martin Campbell—the bloke who resuscitated James Bond not once but twice, with GoldenEye and Casino Royale. Between him and Ridley, expectations are high: can they do for high-rise action in London what so many have done for New York and LA?
The Cast (And Yes, Clive Owen’s Here Too)
It’s not just Daisy Ridley putting in a shift:
- Daisy Ridley as Joanna 'Joey' Locke
- Clive Owen
- Taz Skylar
- Ruth Gemmell
- Ray Fearon
With this lot, the hostage-taker-to-potential-saviour ratio is pretty decent.
Cleaner Climbs the Prime Video Charts
Since dropping on Prime Video, Cleaner has zipped straight into the platform’s top 10, jostling for space alongside other meat-and-potatoes action flicks like Bride Hard, Crime 101, and Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan: Ghost War. These are not films for pondering the mysteries of the universe; you’re here for brawls, peril, and someone in a ventilation shaft, not existential philosophy.
The Critics: Entertained, Confused, Sometimes Both
If you’re the sort who actually cares what the critics say, well, the response has been all over the place. On Rotten Tomatoes, Cleaner is stuck at 52% with critics but hits 66% with audiences—so not a disaster, but not exactly blowing the doors off.
Most of the praise is aimed directly at Ridley, who genuinely sells the action hero stuff. Martin Campbell gets points for pulling off some genuinely vertigo-inducing building stunts, but there’s no shortage of people saying the plot doesn’t just stretch credulity; it takes it to the gym and bulks it up until it’s barely recognisable.
– MovieWeb’s Julian Roman
For everyone else? They’re just having a good time. Users call it 'very entertaining', with 'great action,' and claim Ridley gives an 'excellent' performance. According to them, there are 'enough twists to keep the movie interesting.' So, never mind the plot holes big enough to drop the Shard through—sometimes you just want to see people rappel off a building and dismantle a terrorist operation before last orders.