“Heads of State” is a buddy movie. The buddies are the President of the United States, played by John Cena, and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, played by Idris Elba. They have to learn to work together despite mutual loathing after a Russian super-criminal (Paddy Considine) whose minions are all over the globe shoot down Air Force One while they’re both on board. The president, Will Derringer—yes, that’s his name—is a Hollywood star best known for the “Water Cobra” commando action franchise. He never served in the military, but people still think “warrior” when they see him. He got elected to the highest office in the land based on celebrity alone, despite having no record of public service. That’s the only thing in this movie that could happen.
Like a lot of the characters Cena plays, Will has the energy of a gigantic, sweet dog who’s so excited to see people that he knocks them over, though he grows increasingly irritable the longer he’s forced to traipse through Eastern Europe battling real killers with real knives and guns. The prime minister, Sam Clarke, was in the Special Air Service (SAS) but never saw combat. Elba plays him as a lovable but sarcastic grouch. They’re a superb comedy team, with a dynamic strangely reminiscent of Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau in the “Grumpy Old Men” series, except this time, they’re grumpy middle-aged men who probably weigh a combined 500 lbs.
“Heads of State” is directed by Ilya Naishuller (“Hardcore Henry,” “Nobody“), a graduate of the cool/funny/clever branch of the cinematic bone-breakers’ academy, which also matriculated Guy Ritchie, Edgar Wright, and most of the guys who directed the Roger Moore era of James Bond films. There’s even a moment in a chase scene where the camera moves to follow a couple of vehicles taking a sharp corner at high speed, then pauses on a group of nuns crossing themselves (if Moore were the star, there would’ve been a reaction to the reaction—probably arching an eyebrow and muttering, “Heaven help us”). It’s a slapstick comedy that pauses briefly for character moments, some of which are genuinely amusing or poignant. But it is primarily interested in following its two leads across Europe after Air Force One is shot down by mercenaries working for Considine’s character, whose organization can pop up, wraith-like, wherever the script needs them to be.
Intelligence operative Noel Bissett (Priyanka Chopra Jonas) joins Will and Sam. Sam just happens to be Noel’s ex-lover and still has feelings for her. Noel is the first major character who’s introduced to us, in a soon-to-be-thwarted mission to catch the bad guy that ends with her apparent death, but (obviously) not really, because a movie of this size isn’t going to kill off the third-billed star after the first five minutes. The opening is set against the backdrop of La Tomatina, the world’s largest food fight, at which crowds pelt each other with tomatoes. Given the potential to coat the screen with bright red produce residue even as actual human blood is being spilled, it’s amazing that this event has never been used in an action film. Naishmuller has fun with it, even giving us a long, overhead pull-back of corpses and debris scattered across a street coated with red pulp.
You could parse the film for coded political statements if you wanted. The bad guy hacks top-secret political dirt on public officials all over the globe in order to make the members of the NATO alliance hate each other and disband the organization, making it easier for villains like him to operate. At the same time, he’s avenging the death of his son in a preemptive bombing approved by the global powers-that-be. (The latter story thread seems to have provided Considine the core of a performance that has more force and fury than you might’ve expected; good thing, too, because he’s given little else to work with.)
There’s also a brief moment where the script seems to be making the reactionary/authoritarian argument that civilian deaths, including those of children, are the inevitable consequence of righteous action against evil—a notion that The Hague would take issue with. Still, it moves on pretty quickly to more Looney Tunes-flavored paramilitary action. There are tasty supporting performances throughout, most notably by Stephen Root as a hacker with the haunted expression of a man who only thinks he’s made peace with his own role in spreading mayhem and darkness; and Jack Quaid as a safe house-keeper who’s thrilled to learn that hellhounds are nipping at the heroes’ tails because it gives him a chance to finally unleash the weapons he’s stockpiled.
The script, credited to Josh Applebaum, André Nemec, and Harrison Query, sometimes struggles to segue from one mode to another, especially when transitioning from brutal violence to Sam and Will bickering and picking at each other’s personality flaws. Sam, we are told by the script, is perceived as cold, smug, and detached, though Elba plays him more sympathetically, as a smart, decent guy who knows that much of politics at their high level consists of public rituals and photo opportunities, and has little patience for dummies or posers. Will is very insecure about his public persona, as he should be: a sizable chunk of the US electorate and most of the world views him as an underqualified stunt candidate with zero gravitas. Jonas has palpable chemistry with Elba, subtly communicated through shared puns and fond glances. Cena, who excels at playing physically lethal but emotionally fragile men, does it again here, though he should be on guard at this point against falling into a typecasting rut.
All in all, it’s stupid fun, done with enough panache that its thin story and sometimes too-glib attitude doesn’t hurt it too much. It exists in the same cinematic continuum as “Central Intelligence,” where The Rock proves that a banana can be a lethal weapon, and “Nobody,” where Bob Odenkirk’s former assassin battles an army of thugs in a vacant factory and pauses to reset a “number of days without an accident” sign before killing three more of them. It’s unclear how a movie like this could be sequelized, though surely the studio (Amazon’s newly acquired MGM) will find a way if this one performs well. There are no term limits in cinema.
