Heads of State

3 outta 5

As far as action buddy comedies go, Heads of State is one of the more unique ones as it’s amusingly involving the action-comedy antics of particularly bulky President of the United States and the Prime Minister of the UK. What gives this film a pass is the entertainingly shouty dynamic of the two leads and a decent scale of action. Although it comes with a dull romance subplot that feels meaningless and State doesn’t add anything new, but it is a sturdy entry into the buddy action-comedy genre.  Also, the viewer knows this is fiction as it has a US President who adores and sings the praises of how important NATO is.

Former action star and current President of the United States, Will Derringer (John Cena), is going on his first official visit to the United Kingdom, meeting with Prime Minister Sam Clarke (Idris Elba). Unfortunately, Clarke has no respect for the former action hunk, Derringer. Things get worse when a group of agents are attacked, including Clarke’s former co-worker and romantic partner, Noel (Priyanka Chopra). The terrorist is the deadly Viktor (Paddy Considine) who is assisted by numerous hench-people, assassins and the talented hacker, Arthur (Stephen Root).  Eventually, Air Force One is shot down, with the President and Prime Minister escaping to safety. Now they must make their way across Belarus to a safe house managed by the eccentric agent Marty (Jack Quaid). Meanwhile, Vice President Elizabeth Kirk (Carla Gugino) has been sworn in as President and is trying to hold NATO together as members threaten to disband, and Viktor is in possession of a powerful weapon that threatens the entire world.

Having the US President be a former entertainer without any background in civil service does recall a few real-life US Political figures. But he seems to be genuinely interested in the job, and a caring figure who is concerned about larger geopolitical movements, unlike another entertainer turned POTUS. Derringer has set aside his action hero days and is focusing on being President. Cena is dependably funny throughout as his Derringer has a bone to pick with Clarke as Clarke had lunch with Derringer’s opponent. This boils over in a confrontation between the two on Air Force One when Clarke lays out exactly why he disrespects him. Although in a funny twist later in the movie, Clarke admits to being a huge fan and has watched all of Derringer’s movies.

Their dynamic is what keeps this movie humming, even as the rest of the film delivers action movie cliches. One of the best banter scenes is when they parachute escape from Air Force One with Derringer hanging from the trees, and Clarke must explicitly tell him to throw away his phone as he gets more frustrated with the President’s naivety. They then walk up to a group of Belarussian thugs and the President tries to stroll in as a confident American and they get into a brawl. When they finally make it to a safe house, Quaid’s Marty seems like an ineffective dweeb, but when the bad guys arrive, he’s a one man army. Quaid uses a lot of his charm and geeky line deliveries to make Marty likable and deadly.

Chopra’s agent is part of a brutal opening scene where her crew are killed off by Viktor’s goons, which is a little strange as the tone of action comedy is usually just madcap spectacle, like the aforementioned scene with Marty. But the kills in the opening scene are kind of dark which clashes harshly with the funny action that the film is based around. Noel as the former flame of Clarke is basically there for some manufactured romantic melodrama. She does get in a funny scene where it shows what she was doing for most of the movie with lots of rapid cuts of random chaos. And she gets to tear into both men, saying they are not technically heads of state as the UK head of state is the King and Derringer has been replaced by his Vice President. Gugino as the VP gets more interesting stuff as the film goes on.

Considine as Viktor delivers standard brutality towards his underlings to show how nasty he is, and Considine puts a real mean spin on things. There are also some cool plot twists he’s involved in at the end, and the way he goes out is funny and also delivers a big boom. Root as the hacker looks like a standard movie hacker and he does get to explain all the plot twists in an exposition drop that Root makes compelling.

There are a lot of nifty moments of action, as Director Ilya Naishuller (Nobody) adds some neat flourishes. When Derringer inadvertently rolls down the window of a limo, the bad guys come around the corner with a rocket launcher and Cena has an awesomely befuddled look on his face as he tries to roll it up. The attack on Air Force One that ends up with the President and PM jumping out in a parachute is a great sequence of increasing action. Seeing the POTUS and PM bicker and get into fixes like escaping on a truck full of sheep is certainly unique. Overall, Heads of State is a buddy action comedy with two unlikely action hero characters, the POTUS and PM, that makes it an engagingly fun watch.