Story: When activists seize a skyscraper gala, ex-soldier-turned-window-cleaner Joey (Daisy Ridley) finds herself stranded outside. With her brother among the hostages, she must scale the building and outwit the attackers to save him and everyone inside.Review: In

Cleaner

, director Martin Campbell returns to familiar territory: the taut, high-concept action thriller. But while the film showcases his well-known flair for vertical spectacle and tension-filled set pieces, it never fully transcends its genre roots or narrative implausibilities. Anchored by a committed Daisy Ridley, the film is a functional but uneven ride—elevated by direction, hindered by writing. Set in a gleaming London skyscraper,

Cleaner

introduces Joey Locke (Ridley), an apathetic ex-soldier turned window cleaner with a tragic past and a climbing habit rooted in childhood trauma. As her precarious job takes her to the building’s upper floors, eco-terrorists storm an executive gala inside, triggering a hostage crisis. Joey—stranded on the outside—becomes the only person capable of intervening, especially with her younger brother Michael (Matthew Tuck) trapped within. The setup is, admittedly, far-fetched. A former military operative conveniently moonlighting as a skyscraper window washer is the kind of pulpy premise that only works if the film embraces its absurdity.

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Cleaner

does, to an extent. Screenwriters Simon Uttley, Paul Andrew Williams and Matthew Orton leans heavily on genre nostalgia, drawing clear inspiration from

Die Hard

and even

The Towering Inferno

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, borrowing not only their structure but also their sense of contained chaos. Campbell’s direction brings polish to the proceedings, and his eye for height-induced anxiety is sharp as ever. The film’s best moments come when it forgets its dialogue and lets Ridley dangle, climb, and fight against gravity and odds. But for all its kinetic energy,

Cleaner

falters in the writing. The dialogue is often unnecessarily heavy and sluggish, flattening emotional beats and undercutting tension. Joey’s competence verges on implausible, removing real stakes from what should feel like a desperate, near-impossible mission. The film wants to paint her as vulnerable yet unstoppable—but in making her too capable, it strips the story of suspense. That said, Ridley carries the film with quiet intensity. Unlike the usual action heroes, she stays serious and determined. Her scenes with Tuck bring surprising emotional weight, offering glimpses of tenderness in a film otherwise propelled by gunfire and grappling hooks. Their sibling dynamic is one of the film’s few grounded elements, even if it occasionally feels underwritten. The antagonists, led by Taz Skylar’s Noah, provide chaotic opposition but lack ideological nuance. The film hints at internal divisions within the eco-terrorist group—between moral protest and violent extremism—but ultimately sidesteps the ethical debate in favor of more explosions. Clive Owen, in a blink-and-miss role, is underutilized and fails to inject the gravitas his presence promises. In the end,

Cleaner

is a serviceable action movie. It’s well-directed, competently acted, and delivers enough suspense to keep you watching. But weak writing and surface-level themes stop it from being more than just another decent thriller. For fans of the genre, it’s worth a watch—but don’t expect it to leave a lasting impression.

British pop star Liam Payne’s final TV appearance is finally on the horizon, less than a year after he died suddenly in Argentina.

Netflix on Tuesday released the trailer for its upcoming singing competition series “Building the Band,” which features the late One Direction singer as one of its guest judges. The series, set to premiere July 9, could bring a sense of closure for fans of Payne, who began his singing career as a contestant on the competition series “X Factor.”

In the teaser, Payne offers his wisdom to aspiring singers, urging them, “I need to feel the connection between you guys.” The singer knew a thing or two about group chemistry: during his second “X Factor” foray in 2010, judges Simon Cowell and Nicole Scherzinger decided Payne should join fellow contestants Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Zayn Malik and Louis Tomlinson to form One Direction. Despite losing the crown, the quintet went on to become a pop sensation best known for songs including “What Makes You Beautiful” and “Story of My Life.”

“Building the Band” reunites Payne with Scherzinger, whose role is judge and mentor. Destiny’s Child alum Kelly Rowland also serves as a guest judge. Backstreet Boys singer and Payne’s friend AJ McLean is the show’s host. The series features 50 singers who work with the veteran musicians to form six bands.

Netflix confirmed Payne’s posthumous appearance earlier this month as it released a first look and announced the series’ premiere date. The streamer wrapped production on “Building the Band” before Payne’s death and received support from the singer’s family to push forward. Payne’s “family reviewed the series and is supportive of his inclusion,” Netflix said in a statement to Deadline.

Payne died Oct. 16 after falling from a balcony at a Buenos Aires hotel. He was 31. Shortly after his death, officials determined the singer died from multiple traumas and internal and external bleeding caused by the fall. Officials announced in December that Payne also had traces of alcohol, cocaine and a prescription antidepressant in his system when he fell.

Two hotel workers and Payne’s friend Rogelio “Roger” Nores were three of five people charged for their alleged involvement in the singer’s death but were cleared of those charges in February. Appeals court judges ruled at the time that Nores did not have a role in Payne’s “obtaining and consuming alcohol” and that he could not have taken actions to prevent Payne’s death.

The two remaining suspects — charged in December with allegedly supplying Payne with narcotics before his death — will stand trial, officials announced earlier this month.

It must be the lucid moments that hurt the most, the ones that can remind those with dementia or the other madnesses of old age of just what they’ve lost and what a fog they’re trapped in the rest of the time.

That’s the big take-away from “A Kind of Madness,” a sweet, amusing, sad and just sentimental enough South African dramedy about a great love affair’s final Grand Gesture.

We meet Ellie and Daniel when they met — half a century ago — on Walker Bay. He pulled her out of the water, where flower child Ellie was “trying to remember what it was like to die.” She’d almost drowned as a little girl. When Dan figures out what she means, “morbid” or not, he’s smitten.

“Teach me how to die.”

A whirlwind romance, over the disapproval of her parents, saw them road tripping across the country in his new Ford Taunus wagon, sailing the coast on his 38 foot sloop.

But an accident is what jars Ellie awake in a hospital bed. She’s confused about where she is and why.

“You’re exactly where you’re supposed to be,” the head nurse reminds her, as she does every day. Ellie is 70ish and in Memory Care (Frail Care Unit is how they describe it in South Africa). Her panic and rages just tip us that she’s “off” her anti-psychotic meds.

Only a comforting visit from Daniel (Ian Roberts of “Tsotsi”) can calm Ellie (Sandra Prinsloo of “The Gods Must be Crazy”). But that’s no comfort. Daniel takes Ellie’s latest “I don’t BELONG here” as a call to action. They make a break for it.

Aww, he still has that same ’70s yellow Ford wagon. Isn’t that cute?

The people who don’t think any of this is adorable are their adult children. Olivia (Amy Louise Wilson) is a chef in mid-service when she gets the call. Lucy (Erica Wessels) is a psychotherapist between patients. And the youngest, Ralph (Evan Hengst) is gay and on the verge of a poolside pickup when his life is interrupted.

Lucy is the one who appreciates Mom’s illness and how scary it is for her to be off her meds. Olivia is resentful as this distraction from her life. And Ralph acts guilty as he tries to talk reason to their father when they finally get him on the phone.

No worries. Ralph turns on the tracker for Dad’s phone. Whatever merry chase Dan was going to lead them on, whatever “plan” he comes up with, the kids are right on his heels — talking a cop out of arresting Mom, chasing them across a lake or through the woods.

The flashbacks is in this Christiaan Olwagen film — he did “Poppie Nongena” and a recent South African adaptation of “The Seagull” — give it the air of “The Notebook.” But the sentimental is upended by the practical as we spend more time with the irate, panicked and bickering children. And one of her flashbacks will reveal why Ellie is haunted by visions of an opera singer dressed all in red, why that image obsesses her in her least lucid moments.

The narrative gives us plenty of reminders of how dangerous this situation is, for the demented Ellie and for anyone around her. She might get behind the wheel. She might get hold of Dan’s gun. We invest in this dubious quest, and we fear for where this is going because we all remember “Chekhov’s Gun,” and how Ellie and Dan met.

Movies tend to sentimentalize madness, but co-writers Olwagen and Wessel Pretorious jar the movie back to reality by chasing cute moments with ugly ones, and returning time and again to the children, who are reminded constantly by the expert eldest sibling how badly this could go.

Olwagen deserves a lot of credit for making this a “real world” South African story. The scenery is stunning, and there far more Black people in it than such whitewashed movies as “Semi-Soeter” would show.

Dan speaks Xhosa to his Black countrymen, and the supporting cast is as colorful as you’d expect from this milieu. Understanding, compassion and kindness rear their heads, even as Lucy is climbing onto the hood of a Black policewoman’s car in an effort to stop an arrest and “explain.” Dan doesn’t have that kind of “understanding” from a white cop.

The performances move, amuse and to a one pop — especially Wessels and Wilson as the two feuding sisters. They get the best lines.

“You’re taking this guilt trip alone!”

“What you’re resisting will persist, Liv!”

“A Kind of Madness” delivers an incredibly touching finale, and a just-mysterious-enough coda that lets us guess how this will end up. It’s wistful and sad and uplifting in unexpected ways as it underscores the prophecy of the knowing nurse (her name is omitted from any cast list I can find) who counsels the family about what’s really going on here.

“The heart always remembers even when the mind forgets.”

Rating: PG, fairly explicit sex, some profanity

Cast: Sandra Prinsloo, Ian Roberts, Erica Wessels, Amy Louise Wilson and Evan Hengst

Credits: Directed by Christiaan Olwagen, scripted by Christaan Olwagen and Wessel Pretorious. An MGM release on Amazon Prime.

Running time: 1:39