Heads of State, 2025.
Directed by Ilya Naishuller.
Starring John Cena, Idris Elba, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Jack Quaid, Carla Gugino, Stephen Root, Sarah Niles, Richard Coyle, Paddy Considine, Clare Foster, Katrina Durden, Aleksandr Kuznetsov, Adrian Lukis, Robyn Pennington, Ingeborga Dapkunaite, Steven Cree, Huw Novelli, Arthur Lee, Aled llŷr Thomas, Peter Guiney, Shaq B. Grant, Darya Charusha, Cal-I Jonel, and Sharlto Copley.
SYNOPSIS:
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.
In director Ilya Naishuller’s Heads of State, John Cena and Idris Elba are stuck trying to make the most of a one joke-premise that sees them portraying national leaders of clashing personalities, forced to work together on an globetrotting action-adventure journey when a traitor within one of their ranks attempts to have them killed during an Air Force One hijacking. From there, the terrorists (led by Paddy Considine) hack and spread government secrets, a move that causes infighting within NATO and threatens to crumble it entirely.
As for President Will Derringer (Cena) and British Prime Minister Sam Clarke (Elba), they employ different methods and approaches to leading, even though they both strive for what is best for their respective countries. Perhaps unexpectedly, Will is the more laid-back, goofier, dimwitted type (essentially all the stupidity of the current real-life president without any of the vile personal baggage and repulsive behavior) who pivoted from corny 80s-reminiscent macho action movies to politics, at one point citing international press tour for a movie that enlightened him and spurred him to fight for change. However, he also comes across as a celebrity figure who wants to be liked more than anything, with the more traditional serious-faced, no-nonsense leader Sam (Elba) blasting him as not knowing the difference between a press conference and a press junket, which is a solid joke catering to someone in my line of work that regular viewers might not appreciate.
Another curiously funny line comes when Will, in one of his many bickering moments with Sam, loses his cool and acknowledges that he is not just an action star and would love to work with an auteur filmmaker such as Wes Anderson or Bong Joon Ho; it’s a line begging for the movie to dig into on a metatextual level with John Cena, a supremely talented hybrid entertainer who seems to knock it out of the park whenever someone gives him a chance at a challenging or against-type role. This is not one of those roles.
When the two aren’t arguing about something, they are caught up in action sequences that, while competent when Ilya Naishuller sticks to his wheelhouse of close-quarters brawling with stylistic, snappy camera movements, suffer from a PG-13 rating that renders most of this weightless, bloodless, and cartoonishly over-the-top. It’s also something that goes against celebrating action movies from the 80s, which the film seems to be trying to pay tribute to. There are also several larger scale set pieces involving explosions and whatnot that evidently weren’t backed by the budget to make them look impressive, something that stands out more when Amazon insists for critics to see a streaming only film for review on the big screen (yikes, does it ever blow up the shoddy CGI and green screen effects to a distracting degree).
That’s without getting into how absurd the narrative is (it somehow took three heads to write this, as the screenplay comes from Josh Appelbaum, André Nemec, and Harrison Query), which includes a mole, and a pun-obsessed woman special forces agent (Priyanka Chopra Jonas) also trying to locate and kill the previously mentioned terrorist, a Russian arms dealer expanding into nuclear warfare. Inevitably, she unites with the POTUS and the British Prime Minister to complete the task, assisting them in identifying the mole while defusing their verbal sparring and making more puns.
John Cena and Idris Elba are both talented performers, but here it often feels as if they are straining to generate chemistry, even though they remain amusing presences. Then there is the action, which is, again, solid for the most part but also comes with baffling needle drops, as if the movie is meant to be enjoyed on TBS by your middle-aged dad rather than a streaming service. More head-scratching, the filmmakers seem to be under the impression that the uninspired song choices themselves are jokes, allowing them to play out in their entirety. At other times, they are random with no apparent reason, such as briefly playing “Total Eclipse of the Heart” for 15 seconds while characters are right after a train. Okay then?
All of this is in effort to travel across the world, with everyone under the assumption that they are dead in the Air Force One crash, to reach the NATO summit in Italy and deal with the traitor. Along the way, several other characters come into play, including Jack Quaid’s Marty, who operates a safe house for Will, resulting in a cleverly funny action beat. Nothing about the political intrigue is particularly interesting, mostly amounting to safe, generic messaging about togetherness, which is well-intentioned.
That’s also not to say Heads of State should get overtly political, but it’s apolitical in the sense that it only amplifies how generic, safe, and ridiculous this material is. It’s a more algorithmic approach to filmmaking, which aims to give subscribers something to consume, a massive letdown coming from a polarizing yet bold action filmmaker. You would think no heads were responsible for something so cookie-cutter, not Ilya Naishuller. Star power charisma and the occasional stylish close-quarters fight make it watchable, but somewhere, John Cena is probably hoping he gets to work with Bong Joon Ho after this misfire.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association, Critics Choice Association, and Online Film Critics Society. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews and follow my BlueSky or Letterboxd
