Film: Heads of State
Cast: Idris Elba, John Cena, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Carla Gugino, Jack Quaid, Stephen Root, Sarah Niles, Richard Coyle, Paddy Considine
Director: Ilya Naishuller
Rating: 3/5
Runtime: 113 min
This third feature film by director Ilya Naishuller, is a typical star powered action-comedy. In an unexpected casting choice, we have John Cena as the American president and Idris Elba as the British prime minister. But that’s all that is really different from the regular Hollywood actioner. The film also features Priyanka Chopra Jonas as a TV news reporter, Paddy Considine as an arms dealer Viktor Gradow, Stephen Root as his henchman Arthur Hammond, Jack Quaid as a comical CIA station chief Marty Comer, and Carla Gugino as the vice president.
The film opens with television journalist, Noel Bisset(Priyanka Chopra Jonas), actually an MI6 agent on a joint operation with the CIA, getting involved in a massive food fight in Spain, at the annual La Tomatina festival. Thereafter she is presumed dead and we don’t see her for much of the film until she returns in spectacular fashion for the set-piece action finale where the Heads of State duo work together alongside the M16 agent to thwart a global conspiracy that threatens the world.
Will Derringer(Cena) won his Presidency with the campaign promise, “We did it at the box office and now we’ll do it in the Oval Office.” Like Ronald Reagan he was a movie star but he also had a hit franchise ‘Water Cobra’ behind his success. Derringer is a likeable family man and earnest in his attempt to do good but he finds himself in way over his head as the president. Sam Clarke (Elba) is Cambridge-educated, ex miltary man, has been prime minister for six years and is currently contending with voter dissatisfaction. He scorns the president for his tendency to go rogue. And as is typical, Derringer does just that at a joint press conference when he stops off in London on the way to a NATO meeting.
Ahead of a NATO gathering in Trieste Italy, we meet them in London and its clear the two are not chummy.
In an effort to showcase false solidarity and build up favorable PR the two have been advised by their respective advisors, Sarah Niles on the American side and Richard Coyle on the British, to take a short trip together on Air Force One. The bad guys are out to get both with the objective of dissolving NATO. The action spurts when assassins masquerading as flight attendants start shooting… but as is predictable, despite the plane coming apart midair, Clarke and Derringer manage to parachute out of the flaming plane. The nice guy president’s parachute gets stuck in a tree and the gruff prime minister gets him down. Back home, they are presumed dead and Vice President Elizabeth Kirk takes the oath of office.
The mismatched buddies manage to get themselves from Belarus to Warsaw and beyond, while involved in heavy-duty action along the way. A car chase with Clarke at the wheel of the presidential limo, The Beast, driving in reverse through narrow streets, and leaps, jumps and fisticuffs while rocket launchers and bullets fly all around – the action is predictable but well choreographed and executed. Despite the roughing up the two manage to get to the NATO meeting on time.
Screenwriters Josh Appelbaum and André Nemec with story by Harrison Query, keep the writing interesting with crafty banter and easily digestible plotting. Elba gets the cream of the dialogue while Cena does well to showcase his brawn and sincerity. There is a lot of playful banter seemingly masked by disdain. Together they have an amiable, playful chemistry that is infectious. Heads of State has some really big action set pieces and sequences. This is not a no-nonsense action film. It’s a really funny action comedy, and in spite of the cliches and predictability, is able to deliver stirring entertainment within its bearable runtime.
