What’s It About
When the UK Prime Minister and US President become the targets of a foreign adversary, they’re forced to rely on one another to thwart a global conspiracy.
MOVIESinMO REVIEW
Amazon Prime Video’s newest action comedy, “Heads of State,” brings together two big names – John Cena and Idris Elba – as world leaders who must work together to survive. Director Ilya Naishuller, who made the wild action movies “Nobody” and “Hardcore Henry,” clearly wanted to create something that doesn’t take itself too seriously. The result is a movie that delivers some laughs and decent action scenes, but feels way too familiar. The story follows two very different leaders. John Cena plays Will Derringer, the President of the United States, who used to be a famous action movie star. He’s essentially emulating Arnold Schwarzenegger’s style – a large, affable figure who the American people adore. Idris Elba plays Sam Clarke, the British Prime Minister, who is more serious and traditional. He thinks Will is an idiot and can’t stand having to work with him on the world stage. When both leaders fly together on Air Force One, terrorists attack the plane in a pretty cool aerial fight scene. The plane crashes, and everyone thinks both presidents are dead. But they actually survive and get stuck in Belarus, where they have to work together to stay alive while the world thinks they’re gone. The best part of “Heads of State” is watching Cena and Elba play off each other. Cena gets most of the funny lines while Elba plays the straight man who’s always annoyed. Even though their characters are supposed to hate each other at first, you can tell the actors are having fun making the movie. Priyanka Chopra Jonas shows up as Noel, a British spy who has a history with the Prime Minister. She kicks butt in the action scenes and holds her own with the two leads. There’s also a great scene with Jack Quaid as a nerdy-looking agent who turns out to be an amazing fighter. He single-handedly takes down a whole squad of bad guys, and it’s one of the movie’s best moments. The action scenes are pretty solid when they focus on hand-to-hand fighting. Naishuller knows how to film these close-up brawls with quick camera moves that make them exciting to watch. There’s a fun car chase near the end where Elba drives the presidential limo while Cena fights a bad guy in the back seat. The biggest problem with “Heads of State” is that we’ve seen this exact movie a million times before. It follows the buddy comedy playbook step by step, and you can guess what’s going to happen from the very beginning. The trailer even gives away most of the plot twists, which makes watching the actual movie feel pointless. The bad guys are super obvious and boring. Paddy Considine plays the main villain, but he barely gets any screen time. The movie also wastes other talented actors like Carla Gugino and Steven Root in tiny roles that don’t matter. Weirdly, Sharlto Copley shows up for about two minutes and then disappears completely. The writing feels lazy, too. The characters either explain things that are obvious or make jokes that don’t land. Every conversation sounds like it was written by a computer program trying to make a generic action movie. The political stuff is so safe and boring that it might as well not exist. While the close-up fight scenes look good, the bigger action sequences suffer from a low budget. The explosions and special effects look fake, especially when you watch them on a big screen. The movie also has weird music choices that don’t fit the scenes at all. Sometimes they’ll play a random song for no reason, like “Total Eclipse of the Heart” shows up for 15 seconds after a train scene. The PG-13 rating also hurts the action. Everything feels too clean and cartoonish, which goes against the 80s action movies this film is trying to copy. Those old movies were violent and gritty, but “Heads of State” feels like it was made for kids. This movie represents everything wrong with modern streaming action comedies. It has big stars, a decent budget, and competent direction, but it feels like it was made by an algorithm instead of real people. There’s no heart or creativity – just a safe, boring product designed to fill up Amazon’s content library. It’s especially disappointing coming from Naishuller, who showed real talent with “Nobody.” That movie took the “John Wick” formula and made something fresh and exciting. “Heads of State” feels like he’s going backward, making the kind of generic movie he used to avoid. “Heads of State” isn’t terrible, but it’s not good either. Cena and Elba are charming enough to make it watchable, and there are a few decent action scenes. But the whole thing feels like a waste of everyone’s time and talent. If you’re looking for a mindless action comedy to watch on a lazy afternoon, you could do worse. But you could also do a lot better by watching any of the classic buddy cop movies this film tries to copy. “Lethal Weapon,” “48 Hours,” or even “Rush Hour” are all more entertaining than this forgettable effort. The movie tries to be nostalgic for better action comedies from the past, but it forgets that those movies worked because they had original ideas and genuine chemistry between the stars. “Heads of State” has the chemistry but lacks everything else that made those classics special. At the end of the day, Heads Of State is just a decent way to kill two hours if you have nothing else to watch, but don’t expect anything memorable.
OUR RATING – ANOTHER BUDDY MOVIE 6