When the President of the United States (played by John Cena) and the Prime Minister of Great Britain (Idris Elba) are encouraged to share a flight on Air Force One in order to mend their fractured relationship, a mysterious enemy takes advantage, knocking it out of the sky. President Derringer and Prime Minister Clarke survive the attack and make their way to a safe house in Warsaw, Poland. CIA Agent Marty Comer (Jack Quaid), the keeper of the safe house, welcomes them in with open arms before Russian arms dealer Viktor Gradov (Paddy Considine) sends his terrorist network in to smoke them out. Meanwhile, the world thinks the two men are dead so their governments put into place their respective succession plans. This makes Vice President Elizabeth Kirk (Carla Gugino) the Commander in Chief who tries desperately to keep NATO together since Gradov leaked thousands of classified documents, turning each participating country against one another. The two heads of state are hunted down by Gradov until they come face-to-face in Trieste during a historic summit.
John Cena is very John Cena here. If you enjoy his brand, you’ll enjoy this. If you don’t, you may want to move on. For the rest of the cast, I wouldn’t have gone with a vanilla “everyman” like Considine as the supposedly ruthless villain but Elba is great and Priyanka Chopra Jonas is the perfect “wingman” for a movie like this.
The stand out of this movie, streaming on Prime Video, is the concept. Screenwriter Harrison Query’s idea that two of the most powerful men in the world could be stripped of the people, position and technology that make them powerful is a fun flight of fancy. Add to that the carefree, almost whimsical, personality of President Derringer versus the serious nature of Prime Minister Clarke in a crisis situation? On paper, it’s a good time.
HEADS OF STATE has it’s moments. There’s some good comedic timing, some relatively intense action and some characters to care about. Heck, with a fun montage to explain long stories and some JOHN WICK-esque camera tricks, there’s even some cinematic flare by director Ilya Naishuller, but there’s just such a “cheap” feel to the final product that can’t be overlooked.
There have been several Marvel or Star Wars projects, for example, that would’ve benefited from being feature-length films instead of forced episodic chapters. HEADS OF STATE is the opposite. The staging looks like it was taken straight off of Netflix’s FUBAR, the fight sequences look like they were taken straight off of REACHER and the explosion effects look like they were taken straight off of THE BLACKLIST. Basically, it’s a feature but with a television series patina.
HEADS OF STATE wants to be a movie so badly. It has it’s moments, has a decent infusion of comedy and a cool premise but, at the end of the day, this would’ve fared much better had it been made into a four-episode sitcom.
JKG SCORE: 5.5
NOTE: Huge props to the screenwriters for giving the American President the last name Derringer. Remember Hulk Hogan’s entrance music in the 80’s and 90’s, “Real American?” If you don’t know, that was recorded by the rock band Derringer.
Untitled Film Project 