John Cena and Idris Elba are the entertainingly comedic pair at the centre of Heads of State however their playful chemistry is not enough to save the movie from falling prey to the pitfalls of a tired script.
The plot follows US President Will Derringer (Cena) and British Prime Minister Sam Clarke (Elba) who have a not-so-friendly public rivalry. However, when Air Force One gets shot down over enemy territory, they find themselves on the run and working together to thwart a global conspiracy that threatens the entire free world.
Cena and Elba’s brotherly banter is the heart of the movie and their characters embody the age old cultural feud between the US and UK.
Their playful antagonism revolves around their cultural and political differences. There is great chemistry between them which resolves itself in the enemies-to-friends plotline that is a staple of government conspiracy action cinema.
Cena and Elba are perfectly cast as both embody the stereotypical traits associated with their respective countries. Cena’s Will is a dashing and effusively optimistic, albeit naïve man who rose to the highest office in government from the platform of his career as a movie star. It is not hard for audiences to buy into this characterisation given both the tongue-in-cheek references to the current US president and Cena’s own history as an initial Hollywood interloper because of his WWE background.
Elba’s Sam is a dyed-in-wool, dour, uncharismatic and judgmental political candidate who followed the conventional trajectory through government and is bitter that Will circumvented this path.
Sam has no respect for Will which underscores the British view of Americans. In this sense, Elba plays a convincing British prime minister who is forced to broaden his perspective of Will.
This enables audiences to grow alongside both Sam and Will who through seeing each other as allies, discover a richer sense of each other and their own humanity.
Despite casting two of the biggest names in the action cinema circuit, the two leads have few fight sequences leaving fans of the genre feeling bereft. The movie is littered with combat scenes that incorporate stunts and weapons helmed by minor characters like Priyanka Chopra’s Noel, however the two leads, confined in their roles as politicians, blunder through the action scenes without any of the authority and bluster that we have come to associate with their usual appearances in this genre.
The plot suffers from a lack of imagination and hearkens back to similar government conspiracy stories such as 2019 release, Official Secrets. The story arc play’s it safe and features a hastily included romantic sub-plot between Chopra and Elba that suffers from a severe lack of chemistry that is no match for Elba and Cena’s scenes together.
Ultimately, Heads of State, which can be streamed on Netflix, leans too heavily on star power that does not justify the mediocrity of the plot.
