In April, Prime Video premiered G20, starring Viola Davis as a United States President who uses her military experience to fend off mercenaries. Now, Prime Video has two world leaders battling for the slot occupied by James Bond, Jason Bourne and Ethan Hunt.
In Ilya Naishuller’s Heads of State, freshly elected US President Will Derringer (John Cena) and veteran UK Prime Minister Sam Clarke (Idris Elba) reluctantly come together for a National Alliance Treaty Conference event. Will, a former movie star and people pleaser, annoys the sober and buttoned-up Sam to no end.
Their first meeting is nearly as disastrous as a mission in Spain, in which British agent Noel (Priyanka Chopra Jonas) is defeated by Russian terrorist Viktor’s goons. I take results over likes on Instagram, Sam sneers. I am classically trained, I once did a play with Edward Norton, Will says in his defence.
A renewed attack by Viktor (Paddy Considine) forces Will and Sam to go on the run. Stuck in hostile territory, and with no way to reach their respective governments, the ill-matched duo has to join forces to survive.
Having won half its battle with the casting, Heads of State devotes the other half to agreeable preposterousness. Nobody director Ilya Naishuller wants his geopolitical buddy comedy to be taken seriously only with respect to the elaborately staged parade of crashes, explosions and hand-to-hand combat. The 105-minute movie embraces its knowing silliness, staging an unlikely defence of NATO and Anglo-American bonding.
While the writing is slack, action is anything but. The screenplay by Josh Applebaum, Andre Nemec and Harrison Query could have been sharper and wackier, given the shared comic timing between the leads.
John Cena is hilarious as a “popcorn President” who can’t always live up to his tough guy image, while Idris Elba means business as the overly serious former soldier. Although their wonderful chemistry is directed towards the action set pieces, the actors have a whale of a time pretending to despise each other.
Priyanka Chopra Jonas is a fine foil to the bickering men, far better as a gutsy agent than in the Citadel series. Jack Quaid has an unfortunately short role as a mayhem-loving character. Paddy Considine has little to show for his character Viktor, apart from a death-by-teapot scene.
