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“Cleaner” (2025) is an action thriller that explores the moral and ethical quandaries of today’s world. It shows a group of radical activists infiltrating a lavish gala to send their message across. While doing so, they trap people inside the building and leave their futures at risk. So, a window cleaner decides to rescue those who are stuck inside. Daisy Ridley plays the cleaner, who puts her life at risk. Taz Skylar, Flavia Watson, Ruth Gemmell, Ray Fearon, and Matthew Tuck make up its key supporting cast. The film was theatrically released in February 2025 and is now available to rent online.

Spoilers Ahead

Cleaner (2025) Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis:

“Cleaner” is directed by Martin Campbell, known widely for his work on James Bond films like “Casino Royale,” “Goldeneye,” and “The Mask of Zorro.” Simon Uttley, Matthew Orton, and Paul Andrew Williams have written its screenplay.

What happens in Cleaner, starring Daisy Ridley?...

Martin Campbell’s Cleaner, starring Daisy Ridley, as the name suggests, is centered around a window cleaner, Joey Locke, and how she single-handedly managed to take on a radical group to bring home her older brother from an armed siege at One Canada Square, Canary Wharf, in London. It was just another day at work for Joey, and she was running late as usual. To make matters all the more challenging, she received a call from her brother’s care home. It was Michael’s ninth placement, and once again the authorities found him ineligible to stay. They believed he’d stolen confidential care home account information and leaked it to the local press to establish how the funds were being used wrongfully. Joey vouched for her brother, but the administration refused to budge. They encouraged Joey to look after her brother all by herself. Michael was happy with the suggestion,...

Stars: Daisy Ridley, Matthew Tuck, Clive Owen, Lee Boardman, Rufus Jones, Taz Skylar, Ruth Gemmell | Written by Matthew Orton, Simon Uttley, Paul Andrew Williams | Directed by Martin Campbell

Since the original Die Hard took the world by storm in 1988, it has inspired countless sequels and knock-offs. Often built around the same basic premise, these films have become a sub-genre in their own right. From Die Hard 2: Die Harder set in an airport, to Under Siege on a naval vessel, Passenger 57 on a plane, and even Olympus Has Fallen and White House Down in the White House, the formula has been repeated in various locations, with a lone hero taking on the bad guys and saving the hostages.

Now, Cleaner, directed by Martin Campbell and written by Matthew Orton, Simon Uttley (James Hyde – The Very Thought of You), and Paul Andrew Williams, brings the formula back to where it all started,...

The messy politics of the Indo-China War didn’t confuse writer-director Samuel Fuller; as the machine gun- toting Nat King Cole snarls, hating Commies is an end unto itself! Fuller’s second outrageous Cold War combat fantasy pits a handful of French Legionnaires and mercenaries against the might of the International Communist Conspiracy, to stop the flow of Chinese and Russian weapons into Vietnam. Commander Gene Barry has an ally who could be straight from a Terry and the Pirates comic strip: Eurasian adventuress Lucky Legs. Young Angie Dickinson is the good-time-girl / wronged spouse / caring mother who also maintains cordial pillow-talk relations with the Red vermin. If those are the Good and the Bad, Lee Van Cleef’s Chinese General is the Ugly: his troops guard the China Gate, the key to Commie victory!

China Gate

Blu-ray

Viavision [Imprint] 111

1957 / B&w / 2:35 widescreen / 95 min. / Street Date April 8, 2022 / Available from Amazon.

KollywoodThe applications are currently open and the list of contestants will be announced on June 14 by the electoral officer.Digital NativeThe South Indian Artists Association aka Nadigar Sangam election date was announced recently by Electoral Officer Retd. Judge E Padmanabhan. Elections will be held for the post of President, currently held by Nasser, two Vice Presidents held by Ponvannan and Karunas, the post of General Secretary held by Vishal, the Treasurer post held by Karthi and the 24-member Executive Committee on June 23. The applications are currently open and the list of contestants will be announced on June 14 by the electoral officer. The contestants' list for Nasser's team, also called 'Pandavar Ani', for elections have been announced. Nasser would be contesting once again for the post of President in this elections along with his same team members Karthi and Vishal for Treasurer and Secretary respectively. For the post of Vice President,...

Cult favorite Samuel Fuller explodes the mid-range Hollywood oater with elements we can all appreciate: a ritualistic fetishizing of the gunslinger ethos, and a reliance on kinky role reversals and provocative tease dialogue. It’s as radical as a western can be without becoming a satire. Playing it all perfectly crooked-straight is the still formidable Barbara Stanwyck. Her black-clad ‘woman with a whip’ keeps a full forty gunmen to enforce her will on a one-lady town.

Forty Guns

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 954

1957 / B&W / 2:35 widescreen / 80 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date December 11, 2018 / 39.95

Starring: Barbara Stanwyck, Barry Sullivan, Dean Jagger, John Ericson, Gene Barry, Eve Brent, Robert Dix, Jidge Carroll, Paul Dubov, Gerald Milton, Ziva Rodann, Hank Worden, Neyle Morrow, Chuck Roberson, Chuck Hayward.

Cinematography: Joseph F. Biroc

Film Editor: Gene Fowler Jr.

Original Music: Harry Sukman

Produced, Written and Directed by Samuel Fuller

Was there ever a...

Sam Fuller turns the crime film inside-out with this tale of on infiltrator taking down the syndicate. Vengeful Cliff Robertson uses both the mob and the cops to wipe out the hoods that killed his dad, with the help of two women, one of them a hooker with a heart of gold. The show feels like a ’30s throwback with a precociously violent streak, spiked with a healthy helping of what the critics would call Fuller’s ‘Cinema Fist.’

Underworld U.S.A.

Blu-ray

Twilight Time

1961 / B&W / 1:85 widescreen / 98 min. / Street Date March 20, 2018 / Available from the Twilight Time Movies Store / 29.95

Starring: Cliff Robertson, Dolores Dorn, Beatrice Kay, Paul Dubov, Robert Emhardt, Larry Gates, Richard Rust, Gerald Milton, Neyle Morrow, Peter Brocco, Bernie Hamilton.

Cinematography: Hal Mohr

Film Editor: Jerome Thoms

Original Music: Harry Sukman

Written, Produced and Directed by Samuel Fuller

Samuel Fuller’s successes with distributor-producer Robert Lippert...

By John M. Whalen

In the opening scene of Republic Pictures “The Man Who Died Twice,” (1950) a car drives along a mountain road and two cops in a patrol car remark that it’s nightclub owner T. J. Brennon (Don Megowan) passing by. Next thing you know the car goes off a cliff and explodes in flames. Then a woman (Vera Ralston) gets out of a cab in front of her apartment building and looks up at the balcony where two men are fighting. She shrieks in horror as one of the men comes plummeting down and lands on the sidewalk at her feet. Splat! She watches as the other man climbs up a fire escape ladder to the roof. But not before a third man appears on the balcony and the guy on the fire escape shoots him. Vera Ralston faints from all the excitement and falls on the...

An aspiring singer from Nashville, Tenn., defended herself in an online rant, days after she was charged with attempted murder for allegedly shooting a homeless man.

Katie Quackenbush, who goes by the stage name Katie Layne, was arrested Monday. Police believe the 26-year-old shot Gerald Melton, 54, twice near the famed Music Row on August 26.

According to a news release from Metro Nashville Police, Melton was “trying to sleep on the sidewalk” during early hours when he was “disturbed by exhaust fumes and loud music” allegedly coming from Quackenbush’s Porsche SUV.

According to police, Melton asked Quackenbush to move the vehicle and an argument ensued.