This action movie about U.S. and British leaders, also featuring Priyanka Chopra Jonas, plays like a silly version of a BBC political satire series.
As the U.S. President (and former movie star) Will Derringer prepares to meet the British prime minister, Sam Clarke, he has something of a chip on his shoulder. Journalists and aides figure he’s holding a grudge; during his presidential campaign, Clarke took Derringer’s opponent out for fish and chips. Then, the two are thrown together in the run-up to a NATO summit; their determination to patch up their relationship, which isn’t terribly strong to begin with, is eventually enhanced when they’re forced to fend off varied explosive assassination attempts.
Directed by Ilya Naishuller, who also made the absurdist action pictures “Hardcore Henry” and “Nobody,” “Heads of State” plays like a season of the BBC political satire series “The Thick of It.” (If the show had been crafted to satisfy the Second City Television characters Big Jim McBob and Billy Sol Hurok, whose approval of movies was contingent on things “blowing up real good.”) John Cena, the U.S. president, and Idris Elba, the British leader, craft their performances cannily — their characters don’t know they’re in a comedy, which makes things funnier. The way Cena’s face turns blank when his character doesn’t know what to do next (which is often) is particularly effective.
The movie contains some intriguing, presumably deliberate nods to auteurist cinema. Like Lynne Ramsay’s “We Need to Talk About Kevin” (2011), it opens at the messy Tomatina (tomato festival) in Buñol, Spain, where a shooting aimed at a secret agent played by Priyanka Chopra Jonas is easily mistaken for an edible splat. As in Steven Soderbergh’s “KIMI,” a popular Beastie Boys tune is blared on a sound system during an action scene. And just like in Mike Judge’s “Office Space,” Stephen Root plays a functionary who is routinely humiliated by his boss. It’s loud albeit harmless japery, best appreciated with your air-conditioning cranked to movie theater levels.
Heads of State
Rated PG-13 for language and comedic violence. Running time: 1 hour 55 minutes. Watch on Prime Video.
Source: Movies - nytimes.com
