A new entrant in the subgenre of world leaders turning into action heroes has emerged in Heads of State – streaming on Prime Video.
With Western politics, particularly in the United States, so frequently coming down to masculine posturing and tough guy ‘tudes, it’s no surprise that Hollywood has loved portraying Presidents as (usually unlikely) action heroes.
It’s hardly a new phenomenon, with Charlton Heston given not one but two opportunities to get macho as Andrew Jackson in the 50s, and Cliff Robertson playing a heroic, young JFK during WWII (in a film released in the 60s, while Kennedy was the sitting Pres).
The dramatic license offered by a fictional buttkicking POTUS started to prove hard to resist in the 90s, arguably aided by the rise of more three-dimensional-seeming movie stars. I’m not going to go as far as ‘everyman’, but actors with more range and relatability, who could convince as both slightly fish-out-of-water heads of state and in more credulity-stretching action hero moments. What’s more, the new batch of onscreen leaders would step into the foreground as heroes in their own right, as opposed to hapless suited politicucks needing to be rescued by ‘a real man’.
The first overtly heroic President I recall as a moviegoer is Bill Pullman in 1996’s Independence Day (it’s POTUS vs aliens!), but his cowboy-ish fighter pilot Pres is perhaps cut more from the Heston cloth than the many films that would arrive later. Harrison Ford’s turn in Air Force One (it’s POTUS vs terrorists at altitude!) the following year better predicted the trend to come, as he rolled up his sleeves to get down and dirty and retake the titular hijacked presidential aircraft.
Other notable examples include Jamie Foxx in White House Down (it’s POTUS vs terrorists in the White House!), Samuel L. Jackson in Big Game (it’s POTUS vs terrorists in the wilderness of Finland!), and Viola Davis in G20 (it’s POTUS vs terrorists at G20, the summit of world leaders!).
You’re probably thinking of other instances right now, which suggests how increasingly congested the Presidential action hero subgenre has become.
Prime Video’s new Heads of State very much follows in this tradition—but what differentiates it from the pack is that it’s not just a POTUS action flick, but a classic bickering opposites buddy action-comedy that sees the leaders of the US and UK team up (it’s POTUS & PM vs terrorists all across Europe!). Letting the British Prime Minister kick some butt feels like a new development too, after a century of austere depictions—with the odd exception, like Hugh Grant’s PM who (verbally, at least) squared off with POTUS Billy Bob Thornton in Love Actually (it’s… Hugh Grant!).
Tapping into their onscreen chemistry seen previously in James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad, Idris Elba and John Cena play leaders with drastically different backgrounds here—a mismatched pair demonstrating scant evidence of the countries’ much-vaunted ‘special relationship’.
We’re not introduced to the duo immediately, first being treated to a classic operation-gone-wrong opening à la Brian De Palma’s Mission: Impossible. The action sequence boasts a visually interesting setting, Priyanka Chopras Jonas’ team getting more than they were expecting as twenty tons of tomatoes are hurled around in the Spanish town of Bunol’s annual Tomatino Festival. It’s early evidence of director Ilya Naishuller’s fluency with action (also demonstrated in their previous films, the first-person action-fest Hardcore Henry and the Bob Odenkirk-starring Nobody).
As the aftermath of the red-splattered opening reverberates, we meet Elba’s Prime Minister Sam Clarke. Embattled on the domestic political front as the film opens, the former SAS-trained commando turned Parliamentarian is also, let’s be honest, a bit of a grump. And the last thing he feels like doing before attending a crucial upcoming NATO meeting is put on a show for the cameras alongside Cena’s Will Derringer, a former movie star best known for his ‘Water Cobra’ action franchise.
Things are frosty between the pair as they meet for the first time, thanks to a perceived slight involving the endorsement of Derringer’s rival through demonstrative fish & chips. It’s all Clarke can do to even begin hiding his exasperation with Derringer (a task that world leaders face constantly with the current Oval Office occupant). Cena, meanwhile, is in the nice-but-a-bit-dim mode he has mined successfully in the past, setting up the contrasts and conflict essential for a buddy movie.
Pretending to play nice with one another doesn’t last long, but luckily for the viewer, there are bigger fish to fry after an attempted assassination attempt aboard Air Force One fails (well, fails to kill these two—it seems that every single other person aboard the plane perishes… RIP). Soon, Clarke and Derringer are on the lam across Europe and striving to avoid capture, made more complicated by terrorist baddie Viktor Gradov’s takeover of the Echelon global surveillance system.
Terrorist motives vary wildly in action movies, but it’s interesting to note, in light of recent military action against Iran’s nuclear programme, that Gradov (Paddy Considine) is out for revenge after his son was killed in a MI6/CIA bombing that didn’t go according to plan. And what also becomes very evident in Heads of State is strong pro-NATO sentiment. Gradov’s plan involves splitting up the alliance, allowing the film to both repeat and react to US arguments like “we give, they take”, addressing the alliance’s value head on: “If NATO falls, there’s no backstop against despots and dictators,” for example.
In the unlikely event you have started to think of this as a serious message movie, this is just something that adds an interesting element to a pleasantly enjoyable, sometimes predictable, popcorn pic. One that’s powered by the stars driving it along, as they go through all the familiar but no less welcome buddy comedy beats.
Who else would you want proclaiming “who’s the action hero, now, huh?” or “nobody sucks on sheep nipples”? Exactly. Democracy has spoken, and we’ve elected Idris Elba and John Cena.
