I have to admit that when I heard about Heads of State being a buddy action film with John Cena as the President of the United States and Idris Elba as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, I was totally on board. Then when I saw that this was heading directly to Amazon Prime, my excitement fizzled. When you have an action film with those two on the marquee, it just seems like the perfect summer film, and with the director of Nobody and Hardcore Henry at the helm, it just adds to the expectation of pure dumb popcorn bliss. Only Amazon Studios can find a way to mess this up. Still, I tried to go into this with an open mind, but the end result is an action comedy that underwhelmed in such spectacular fashion that I’m somewhat impressed at how mediocre this film turned out despite all its opportunities to impress.
Will Derringer (Cena) was a Hollywood action star before becoming president, and he uses his Hollywood image as a big-screen action star to bolster his image with the public. Then there is Sam Clarke (Elba), who actually has military training. Though he never saw combat, he kind of sees Derringer as an actor just playing the part of the president, and the two are constantly butting heads. It’s when they are together on Air Force One and they plane is attacked that they really have to begin to work together as they narrowly escape their plane crashing and they parachute alone into Eastern Europe. Thankfully this pair has onscreen chemistry together, or this film would have been in worse trouble, but the problem I saw early on is that this film just couldn’t decide on the right balance of action and comedy. Having a PG-13 rating really neutered the film, because it very clearly wants to be in the same league as Lethal Weapon, but it just doesn’t have the laughs, the violence, or the grit to make a difference.
Considering Ilya Naishuller directed this the film, it definitely feels a bit neutered when it comes to the violence. Sure, there are several fights, shootouts, and car chases throughout, but it’s just not as hard-hitting as you’d expect, and if anything it felt a bit cartoonish. There’s a fight sequence early on in the film where Will and Sam have to team up against some village thugs. This would have been a perfect opportunity to let Cena showcase some of his WWE moves, but instead they kind of just make him out to be the action version of Mr. Bean, where through sheer luck and accidents he manages to scrape through the fight. Then we have Noel Bisset (Priyanka Chopra Jonas), who is a secret agent who narrowly escapes being killed by the main bad guy in the film played by Paddy Considine … OK, I’m kind of tired of seeing the female in action films being the ultimate badass that can fight and shoot their way through anything. Seriously, it was cool the first ten years, but at this point it’s gotten absurd. Give us a twist and have us expect this badass chick to win a fight but instead get squashed. Keep the audience guessing and on their toes. Of course nothing in this film is a surprise or feels fresh. Even the FX at times look like something out of a bad SYFY film.
So the villain’s main goal in this film is to dismantle NATO and avenge his son who died in a bombing. His motivations actually give this film a perfect opportunity to have some depth and delve into the moral decisions during times of war, but instead the film continues trudging forward and ignores any opportunity to have depth. This had a good writing team behind it, writers involved with Mission Impossible : Ghost Protocol, so I just want to know what happened here. The movie is stupid, forgettable fun, but I feel with the talent involved it should have managed to be a little better than what we got.
This leaves me with the problem I have with streaming. The films I’m seeing being churned out by Amazon and Netflix aren’t films; they are just soulless content made to just keep viewers watching for another week rather than making content that is worth remembering. Seeing the way a film like Heads of State was handled has me terrified at what Amazon will do to James Bond. I have zero confidence in the creative heads, especially when you consider that they have the funds to bankroll some excellent projects, but they just settle for making the bare minimum. Hopefully things will change, but I seriously doubt it’ll happen any time soon.
