This feels like the British response to Die Hard.
Director Martin Campbell has plenty of muscular action epics on his résumé, including a pair of Bonds — GoldenEye and Casino Royale — so he’s certainly comfortable with the genre. Alas, the major problem here is that Simon Uttley, Paul Andrew Williams and Matthew Orton’s script wanders during the first two acts, making us wait too long to get to the “good stuff.”
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| Joey (Daisy Ridley) desperately tries to break a shatter-proof glass window, in order to gain entry to the high-rise building that is under siege by eco-terrorists. |
A brief prologue shows adolescent Joey (Poppy Townsend White) growing up in an abusive household, where she has developed Spider-Man-style wall-climbing skills as a means of fleeing her father’s outbursts. Flash-forward 20 years; Joey has blossomed into a tough woman with a hair-trigger aversion to bad behavior by men. Her potential career with the British Army’s Special Reconnaissance Regiment concluded abruptly after she beat up a misogynistic fellow soldier.
Her current job as a window cleaner at London’s One Canada Square — the UK’s third-tallest building — is the latest in a series of dead-end jobs. Her inability to maintain a stable lifestyle is mirrored by her brother, a hacker savant who has just been bounced from his ninth care facility placement. She’s therefore forced to bring him to work on this fateful day, and parks him in the building lobby. (Really, she should know better.)
In an upstairs ballroom, Agnian Energy is touting its clean, planet-friendly credentials during a shareholder gala hosted by CEOs Geoffrey Milton (Rufus Jones) and his piggish brother Gerald (Lee Boardman). The party is crashed by Marcus Blake (Clive Owen) and fellow members of his radical Earth Revolution eco-activists; they’re determined to expose the Miltons as hypocrites whose company has made its millions via heinous pollution and razing of pristine forest land.
Although terrifying for the guests, this activist action is somewhat reasonable — given Agnian’s truly deplorable behavior — until Blake’s control is usurped by one of his violently unhinged Earth Revolution associates: radical antihumanist Lucas Vander (Taz Skylar). Then things get really nasty.
Joey, stuck outside the building, witnesses the whole thing ... and can do nothing.
Worse yet, when she resourcefully figures out a way to alert police, her actions are spotted by Vander, who calls 999 and claims that she’s a terrorist.
This is when the script goes off the rails, because that’s an eyebrow-lifting contrivance too many.
The upshot is that Joey remains outside the building for what feels like ages, while Vander and his minions prepare to execute a truly unpleasant doomsday scenario.
At ground level, law enforcement presence is headed by Superintendent Claire Hume (Ruth Gemmell), DI Kahn (Ray Fearon) and SWAT team leader Capt. Royce (Howard Charles, recognized from TV’s Whistable Pearl). All three deliver solid performances.
In a nice touch, Hume is bothered immediately by the “terrorist” label attached to a lone woman dangling helplessly halfway up the skyscraper. That feels ... wrong.
What follows works best when little details, established in the first act, have satisfying payoffs during the climax. Michael, a Marvel Comics nerd, carries a faux Thor’s hammer at all times. (Michael is a high-functioning austistic who, with proper care, probably could function successfully in society.) His presence inside the building proves helpful more than once.
Ridley — blessed with one of cinema’s best smiles — definitely is making the most of her post-Star Wars career. She capably conveys the grit, stubborn determination and split-second resourcefulness we’d expect from an ex-special forces soldier. Following her equally powerful starring role in last year’s Young Woman and the Sea, this is another display of solid acting chops.
Skylar’s Vander is a villain we love to hate; he oozes menace, craftiness and a violent, hair-trigger temper. Owen is persuasive as the idealistic Blake; Flavia Watson is memorable as Zee, Earth Revolution’s hacking specialist.
Boardman is impressively repugnant as the loathsome Gerald, and Jones is oiliness personified, as Agnian’s smarmy, glad-handing public face. (One does wonder, though, how the two of them ever attracted investors; as a package, they seem as sincere as a scorpion.)
Once we hit the final act, Campbell and his editors — Jim Page and Cheryle Potter — move things at a lively clip, with melees and skirmishes capably staged by the second unit stunt folks. The CGI and special effects teams orchestrate the exterior skyscraper sequences with total credibility; acrophobes likely will run screaming from the room.
At its best moments, this is a tidy little thriller. Sadly, there are too few best moments.
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