Film Review: Heads of State; John Cena and Idris Elba elevate actioner with budding chemistry
There’s a whole lot of familiarity going on with Heads of State. It’s a tested premise – that of mismatched partners in an action landscape – but screenwriters Josh Appelbaum, André Nemec and Harrison Query don’t try to pretend it’s anything otherwise, and so with a capable genre director in Ilya Naishuller (Nobody) and both the action and comedic stylings of John Cena and Idris Elba (clearly enjoying their time together on The Suicide Squad to reunite), the film manages to entertain in spite of how telegraphed it all ultimately proves to be.
There’s a little real-world crossover commentary taking place here with Cena’s Will Derringer, a former action movie star who has utilised his popularity to win the presidency. There’s a lot of criticism thrown his way regarding how well suited he is to be the President of the United States (sound familiar?), but he doesn’t let it deter his intentions. That being said, he’s easily rattled by United Kingdom Prime Minister Sam Clarke (Elba, once again proving how good a comedic actor he is). The two trade barbs and undermine each other where they can, so it makes perfect sense that Query’s story would then make it a necessity for the two to rely on the other.
What’s quite interesting about Heads of State is that, as outlandish as it proves to be, there’s a lot of seriousness at play. People in positions of power disagreeing with each other is an action we’re all too familiar with in the current landscape, and there’s an action sequence regarding an attack and the eventual destruction of Air Force One that holds quite a lot of weight when Derringer’s staff essentially accept their fate in order to ensure the President lives. But this is a slice of action escapism at the end of the day, so Naishuller makes sure that there’s so much exaggeration applied to its action that any of the situational gravity felt is swept away in favour of spectacle and the comedic chaser.
As much action as there is, Heads of State ultimately works better as a comedy, with Elba playing it straight opposing Cena’s more fish-out-of-water temperament, and their chemistry drives a lot of the film, even when it falls under the weight of the stylised action we’ve come to expect from these types of streaming titles. We’ve seen a lot of the action beats play out before, but it doesn’t mean we still can’t be swept up in the violent execution of it all, with some serious hand-to-hand combat involving MI6 agent-turned-security detail Noel (Priyanka Chopra Jonas) proving a particular highlight.
Speaking of Noel, she’s thrown into the mix because, believe it or not, there’s something of a plot at bay within Heads of State‘s near 2-hour running time, one that centres around Gradov (Paddy Considine), an arms dealer with a professional and personal grudge against government, with his ultimate plan being to kill both Derringer and Clarke, overtake control of a massive global surveillance system, and use that tech to dismantle NATO. Standard genre villain type stuff, really.
It’s all just fodder so that the two figures have a reason to both stay in close proximity with one another and to manoeuvre a variety of set pieces that manage their individual levels of excitement, including a safe house assault that takes advantage of how a security system can act as a type of assassination guide, and a chase sequence through an Italian city (always a popular spot for the genre), with Elba driving a gradually depleting limousine through the crossfires of gun shots and explosions; given that both Appelbaum and Nemec have the likes of Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol and the live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies to their name, it makes sense that the action here is presented in an exciting enough manner.
As much as Heads of State also boats a seriously impressive line-up of talent – Stephen Root, as a hacker working alongside Gradov, Jack Quaid, as an excitable agent holding post at the aforementioned safe house, Carla Gugino, as Derringer’s stern Vice President, and Sharlto Copley, as a right-hand to Noel – it ultimately proves to be the Cena and Elba show, with many of these aforementioned names appearing in the most miniscule of on-screen minutes; in fact, I even had to make sure it was actually Copley in the credits. Heads of State is the type of film that could have really thrived as a vast ensemble piece, and whilst Cena and Elba are no slouches in the leading-the-charge department, there’s am energy that crackles when Chopra Jonas joins proceedings, proving there’s a certain elevation that could have been adhered to if the film welcomed specific cast aspects.
Heads of State very much travels where one expects it to. And although it can’t entirely escape its political satire (it really is difficult to separate the concept of the film around a celebrity President from real-life actuality), it injects enough action ridiculousness to distance itself from overall grounded connotations. It’s loud and sporadically funny, and ultimately works as well as it does because Cena and Elba are so committed to the cause of delivering entertaining work beyond the basic mentality the film settles for.
TWO AND A HALF STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
Heads of State is streaming on Prime Video from July 2nd, 2025.
*Image courtesy Prime Video/Kit Communications
