Heads of State (2025)

'Heads of State' holds positives and negatives, for me. For the opening half of the movie, I was not feeling it. It just all felt so plain, stale and quite grating, to be honest. To my surprise, though, it actually improved as it went on. By the end, I think it actually won me over. One element that was keeping my interest, even amongst the aforementioned slow initial chunk, was the cast. I like Idris Elba, I like John Cena. Therefore, I had just enough in me to keep my eyes on the screen. Their banter is a bit forced, but does become effective eventually. Priyanka Chopra is pretty good, plenty of satisfactory action from her; that recap edit is amusingly done, to be fair. Jack Quaid's bit is fun, while Paddy Considine, Stephen Root and Carla Gugino are decent actors to compensate for otherwise quite lame characters. If not for those named, I'd be rating this a lot lower. Still, there are some strong moments and cool shots in there, like the apartment staircase and the lost tooth moment. Annoyingly, there is a fair amount wrong too; for example, the special effects are absolutely not good. All things considered, by the narrowest of margins, I did find this to be passable action fare. It really ought to have been better, though.

"Heads of State" functions as a basic "buddy" team up, comedy action flick but its not without its limitations. Lets start with the positives. Idris Elba and John Cena are perfect choices for this kind of film. Ones loud, a showman, in the role of the US president. The other's more grounded and somewhat acerbic, as the UK Prime Minister. The interplay between the two works well, moving from mutual disdain, to at times grudging, respect and even friendship, of a kind. The action is well paced too, it keeps coming with a little mostly light drama, in between, so you can catch your breath. Now to the downside. They can play this any way they like but its hard not to see elements of pro US/UK political and military propaganda, in operation. NATO are heavily pushed as the "good guys", taking on "bullies". Well tell that to the former Yugoslavia NATO bombed into the ground and ultimately, destroyed. Its unsurprising too, that the "baddies"are portrayed as Russian. In summary, if you step past the plug for US/UK exceptionalism there is a functional comedy action flick on offer, that's moderately watchable but by no means special.

I like Cena, Alba and Hardcore Henry. This is a little long. The action is good but I skipped a lot of dialogue yet didn't miss any of the story. More Belarusian dancing would have been better than all that banter. In the end, I had emotional investment in the characters and didn't get bored of the action scenes/events. Barry...I mean Huey makes a great appearance.