Ah, summer - the time of year when temperatures rise and the IQ of movies drop, not that that's always a bad thing. People want escapist popcorn fare and on this Independence Day weekend that means dinosaurs running amok in theaters and streamers treating the stay-at-home crowd to a sequel like Netflix's The Old Guard 2 and the high concept action comedy Heads of State from Amazon Prime.
It opens with a prologue in Spain where a joint CIA-MI-6 operation goes horribly sideways resulting in the deaths of everyone including team leader Noel Bisset (Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Quantico) - spoiler: she's not dead; it's in the trailer - and allowing a hacker (Stephen Root, Office Space) working for Russian arms dealer Viktor Gradov (Paddy Considine, Mobland) to access the super spy network Echelon which holds all the secrets and sees everything.
We then meet our titular heads of state: Recently inaugurated American President Will Derringer (Jon Cena, Peacemaker) is a former action movie star nicknamed "the Venom in Denim" for his Water Cobra series and British Prime Minister Same Clarke (Idris Elba, Pacific Rim) has been PM for six years, is suffering poor approval ratings, and thinks Derringer is a clown. Derringer isn't too chuffed about Clarke either because during the campaign he had fish & chips with his leading opponent & considered that interference in the election.
After their personal beefs erupt during a joint press conference, their respective chiefs of staffs suggest Clarke riding on Air Force One with Derringer to the upcoming NATO Summit in Trieste, Italy with a side stop in Warsaw, Poland. It will make for a good photo op to tamp down the negative press. Unfortunately, a bad guy posing as a chef on AF1 kills the comms officers and turns off the radios, then attempts to kill the leaders while a cargo jet filled with attack drones appears and launches an assault on the plane. The plane critically damaged, a Secret Service agent gets them into parachutes and off the plane before it crashes into the woods of Belarus. (If you're thinking, "Wait? Isn't Belarus past Poland?" then give yourself a cookie because it is.)
While Derringer wants to call home to let his family and government know they're alive, Clarke believes that whoever could've pulled off such an audacious attack would be listening for such a call and probably had moles in their governments, so best to keep quiet and get the the CIA safe house in Warsaw that the agent directed them to. Through a series of hijinks they make it to Warsaw and into the hands of CIA station agent Marty Comer (Jack Quaid, Novocaine). On the downside, with control of Echelon Gradov's goons immediately show up to kill everyone.
The pair almost escape, but are caught and basically dead until a car appears out of nowhere to run down their captors. And who is this driver ex machina? Duh. It's Bisset! (Told you she wasn't dead!) The trio then make their way to the NATO Summit which is in a state of uproar because Gradov has leaked documents showing that everyone was spying on and interfering in their supposed allies business. While Acting President Elizabeth Kirk (Carla Gugino, Sin City) tries to hold the alliance together, things aren't looking good. Will the Prez & the PM (Free Band Name!) learn to get along and save the day?
While not breaking much new ground in the antagonist frenemies buddy Odd Couple genre, the script by Josh Appelbaum & André Nemec (Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, the 2014 & 2016 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles flicks) manages to be slightly better than necessary as it takes some time in between the punchy-shooty and mutual disrespect wisecracks to flesh out the characters more than the cartoons you'd expect.
Derringer gets ragged on for being "gym strong as opposed to strong strong" by the actual military vet Clarke, but they don't turn him into a punching bag for "stupid ugly Americans" or an avatar of a certain former pal of Hollyweird celebs who they decided was worse than Satan a decade ago because he changed team jerseys. Derringer is a bit of a goof, but he's a kind family man who's trying to do good in the world. Conversely, Clarke's dismissive snootiness is a front for being a lonely bachelor in a job he's getting jaded about as he still pines for the girl who got away but comes back into his life in time to run bad guys down with a car.
Director Ilya Naishuller (Hardcore Henry, Nobody) sometimes wobbles a bit on the tone when dealing with Gradov's brutality, but it's only briefly, unlike someone like David Leitch (Bullet Train) who wobbles for entire movies. The action is clear and there are a couple of genuinely brilliant instances of showing not telling to explain how characters got from one point to another.
While Heads of State may not be a towering achievement in action cinema, it's a notch above the usual dumped to streaming dreck we get served and watch only because we're paying for it anyway. A post-credit scene hints at possible sequel action and I wouldn't be opposed to more in this vein.
Score: 7/10. Catch it on Amazon Prime.
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