Heads of State — Ilya Naishuller [Review]

There probably isn’t a company on earth better associated with immediacy than Amazon. Unless one lives in the remotest regions of Canada or Alaska, there isn’t a place in North America where Amazon isn’t part of one’s daily life in some way or another. Almost any package one could imagine over dinner tonight could be waiting on their doorsteps before they get home from work tomorrow. Even those who avoid it must consciously seek alternatives and make counter-cultural choices because of the ubiquity of the fast-service company. But it’s that immediacy that also makes the already dated political context of Heads of State even more embarrassing. It’s a film that, had it come out in the 2010s, would have stood a chance of riding a momentary wave of relevance; as is, Heads of State is already a relic from another time. 

After a successful though shameful career acting in films with names as dumb as Water Cobra, Will Derringer (John Cena) wins the United States’ presidency without any professionalism makeover. He’s an iconoclast to the game of politics, in some ways by refusing to play the game the way it has always been played. He is also shallow and simplistic. Despite all of the parallels to the current American demagogue, Heads of State takes the presidency in an entirely different direction. Derringer sought his office after seeing the world on a press tour and being exposed to the potential of a healthy and flourishing globalist vision for the world. Meanwhile, the UK Prime Minister Sam Clarke (Idris Elba) is cut from the type of icon that Derringer prefers to smash. He’s a veteran of the British Army and very much familiar with the political game. The two get along like oil and water, until an assassination attempt forces both a bromance and political cooperation. (If you prefer romance over bromance in your politics-adjacent streaming views, consider checking out Amazon’s Red, White & Royal Blue from two years ago instead.) The pair are presumed dead after Air Force One, carrying both of them, blows up over Eastern European airspace — and the intelligence breach that enabled the attempt on their lives prevents them from contacting either of their governments until they reach the NATO summit in Trieste, Italy.

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