Rather than give the world an escape, Heads of State, Amazon’s throwback buddy comedy, thrums the tension in US foreign relations. Suicide Squad veteransIdris Elbaand John Cena are redeployed in this gun show from Nobody director Ilya Naishuller, respectively, as the UK prime minister and US president at loggerheads. President Derringer, barely six months in office, resents the PM for not doing more to help him get elected. Prime Minister Clarke, a six-year incumbent mired in an approval ratings slump, has already dismissed the president – a swaggering former action hero – as a Schwarzenegger knockoff. After a joint press conference goes sideways and spoils the announcement of a Nato-supported energy initiative, the pair are forced on an Air Force One ride to help repair the PR damage – but it gets worse when the plane is shot down.
As it turns out, the Nato energy thingy was cribbed from a nuclear scientist that alliance forces neutralized to head off the threat of another Hiroshima – and his father, a psycho arms dealer named Viktor Gradov (a rueful Paddy Considine), is bent on revenge. In fact, the two-hour film opens with Noel – a skull-cracking MI6 agent played byPriyanka Chopra– leading a covert strike on Gradov in the middle of the world famous Tomatina festival in Buñol, Spain, that turns upside down when she and her team are felled in the food fight. That botched operation – part of a wider sabotage, as we’ll learn later – is top of mind when the president and prime minister bail out of Air Force One (under attack from without and within) into a Belarusian wood. From there, they must find their way back to safe harbor – not knowing whom they can trust when they get there, of course. All the while they’re being chased by Gradov’s hell-raising henchmen Sasha and Olga “the Killers”, whom Aleksandr Kuznetsov and Katrina Durden play like Boris and Natasha, but eviler.
It’s the kind of paint-by-numbers summer tentpole that would have drawn a crowd in 2013 – when Olympus Has Fallen and White House Down were doing serious box office numbers. The fact that Amazon MGM went straight to streaming with it, instead of doing an exclusive theatrical release first, speaks volumes about the state of play in the film industry – and, perhaps, the mixed reception forG20, their straight-to-streaming shoot-em-up about the female president who has to fight her way out of a global summit.
But where a Bezos studio head could make the case that Viola Davis isn’t a solo draw (even as her body of work suggests otherwise), the lack of faith in Heads’ theatrical potential is beyond comprehension. John Cena remains one of, if notthebiggest draw in professional wrestling, while popping up in everything from the Fast and Furious franchise to the Simpsons. Idris, star of big (Hobbs & Shaw) and small screen (Luther, The Wire), has been touted as a possible James Bond successor for a solid decade. Chopra is a Bollywood superstar who successfully pivoted to network TV and married a Jonas brother. Why did Amazon think this film wouldn’t do well at the cineplex?
They should’ve had more confidence in their leads, all three of whom meet the broad performance profile for a popcorn thriller. Elba in particular does a deft job of toggling from his Odd Couple chemistry with Cena (the exceptional actor-wrestler besides Dave Bautista who canreallyplay the margins between tough and tender) to the romantic chemistry with Chopra (who gets to kick ass and take punches just like in her Quantico days). The rest of the cast delivers, too. Richard Coyle plays against his Coupling type as the PM’s dour right hand, while Sarah Niles – with her resting “bitch, please” face – is a study in quiet strength again as the president’s top aide and best bud. Stephen Root, a hacker double agent, is always a treat. And Jack Quaid, fresh off playing lead inNovocaine, hams it up so hard in his handful of appearances as a CIA safe house watchman that he earns his very own end-credits scene.
Throughout, Naishuller cooks up action sequences that leave plenty of room for pratfalls and one-liners. (The PM, a Royal Army vet, detonating a smoke bomb in his own face; puns are Noel’s love language; etc) And the writing – a team effort between Josh Appelbaum and André Nemec (Ghost Protocol) and Harrison Query (who also gets story credit) – has command. When two major characters went missing for chunks of the film (Chopra’s was gone for nearly an hour), they would smartly bring them back with a snappy, Edgar Wright-style montage explaining where they had been. Bleeding hearts will keep watching for the sermon on Nato’s value as a peace-keeping force, and maybe look away when it ends in a massive shootout.
Fun, fiery and totally frivolous, Heads of State is a perfect summer movie with great potential for future sequels. (The end scene certainly sets that up.) But getting it to launch first in theaters next time might take a global coalition. Do we have the votes?
Heads of State is now available on Amazon Prime