The new trailer for Cleaner showcases Daisy Ridley in an R-rated action piece that feels far removed from the coarse sands of Tatooine.
Daisy Ridley plays a window cleaner caught in the middle of a terrorist plot. Enraged extremists, led by Clive Owen, evade a gala thrown by a major energy company and take all 300 attendees hostage. Ridley’s character is an ex-soldier and the only one who can prevent disaster.
A Concept From the Past, a Villain of the Times
Set in a high-rise, you can’t help but draw comparisons to Die Hard. The director is Martin Campbell, the filmmaker behind two of the best James Bond movies: GoldenEye and Casino Royale. So if Campbell wants to make a Die Hard movie, I say let him.
Related
10 Best James Bond Movies, Ranked
The James Bond franchise gave us several amazing movies over the years, but these are surely some of the best and most memorable ones.
Of course, Clive Owen is no stranger to a good thriller, having starred in films like Children of Men, Sin City, and Inside Man. His antagonist feels timely, as concern over corporate ethics has been a trend in film (How to Blow Up a Pipeline, Blackberry), TV (Succession, Industry), and real-world news.
Daisy Ridley: here, there, and back again
Before 2014, Daisy Ridley was unknown to the mainstream. Her credits included a few TV episodes and some short films. Then Disney shockingly announced the 22-year-old would lead the next Star Wars trilogy.
Ridley became an overnight pop culture mainstay, defined by her turn as Rey in Force Awakens, The Last Jedi (2017), andThe Rise of Skywalker (2019). For six years, she was everywhere.
And then the trilogy was over. It wasn’t until 2023 that she re-emerged in film, in smaller, diverse projects like Sometimes I Think About Dying, The Marsh King’s Daughter, Magpie, Young Woman and the Sea, and We Bury the Dead. Comedy, crime, thriller, biopic, and horror. All very different from Star Wars.
Speaking with Collider at SXSW, Ridley said:
I would say this is probably the toughest action I’ve done. I have two big fights, and it was interesting because we were trying to research really good female action, like women fighting women, and it’s not that easy to come by.
Atomic Blonde
is a good recent one and there are bits and bobs, but the intention of the stunt team, and Martin, and me was that the fights would be just as brutal between me and the woman I fight, and then between me and the guy I fight.
Despite Ridley and Rey’s growing distance, a reunion has already been announced. She will again pick up her lightsaber in a new Star Wars tentpole. The assumption is a 2026 release, with the film directed by Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy and written by Justin Britt-Gibson and Damon Lindelof (Lost).
