From “The Woman King” to Madam President, Viola Davis’ growing roster of fierce commander-in-chief roles reveals a star who takes the words “leading lady” literally, no matter what skepticism audiences may show. The internet seems to have rolled its collective eyes at the idea of Davis in ’90s-style action showcase “G20,” but there’s no actor on earth who could play such a gung-ho U.S. president without some degree of blowback … since there’s no president in U.S. history who’d stand a chance against a G20 summit-disrupting psycho determined to crash the global economy. (Supply your own tariff joke here.)
Clearly reflecting the other candidate in the most recent election, Davis does a fine job of embodying Danielle Sutton, a war hero whose military training and protect-the-little-guy instincts make her an ideal foil for the ruthless Rutledge (Antony Starr). Rutledge has a plan to turn $70 million in crypto into several hundred times that much by hijacking the Cape Town-based confab and “exposing” corruption in the world’s top currencies — a scheme that relies on forcing all the world leaders in attendance to recite a phrase on camera, so these terrorists can deepfake compromising footage of them and release it to the media.
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But Sutton is resourceful enough to sneak away, along with her top bodyguard Manny (Ramón Rodríguez), the British prime minister (Douglas Hodge), the South Korean first lady (MeeWha Alana Lee) and the head of the IMF (Sabrina Impacciatore). It’s up to these five — plus first gentleman Derek Sutton (an unusually serious Anthony Anderson) and their teenage kids, Serena (Marsai Martin) and Demetrius (Christopher Farrar) — to outsmart and overwhelm dozens of burly mercenary types.
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From the opening action scene, set in Budapest, audiences have reason to fear that filmmaker Patricia Riggen isn’t up to the task. She blocks and shoots everything like mediocre TV, with the kind of phony-looking lighting and establishing shots parodied by “Team America: World Police.” Action does not come naturally to the “Under the Same Moon” director, though the script poses an even bigger problem in “G20,” a movie whose short title manages to reflect both its high concept and shockingly low intelligence level.
Practically all the dialogue is delivered in sentence fragments, maxing out around six words per line (some are as short as one). It took four writers to crack this assignment, and the whole thing still feels like an “SNL” parody of itself. When one character complains about running around the G20 compound in high heels, Sutton explains that she “vetoed that idea” and shows off her bright red running shoes, hidden under (but still matching) her long silk gown.
As action-movie costumes go, it’s the most versatile frock since Jamie Lee Curtis’ little black dress in “True Lies.” If only this film were half as funny, or bombastic. The script is clearly modeled on movies like “Air Force One” and “White House Down,” right down to the trailer-capping shot of Davis dangling from a helicopter — except this president isn’t just protecting her own life. While her veep (Clark Gregg) follows along in horror from afar, Sutton has all of America’s allies depending on her … and her Americanness seems to be her greatest asset.
In a sense, this patriotic, pro-military fantasy seems to be aimed at those least likely to support a candidate like Sutton — the aggro, might-makes-right crowd that once embraced stars such as Stallone and Schwarzenegger. Though nearly half the movie’s elapsed before the president picks up a weapon, there’s no going back once she’s armed. Here, Sutton seems to be taking Teddy Roosevelt’s advice, “Speak softly and carry a big stick,” as she machine-guns her way through the halls.
We should credit Davis for learning how to wield such equipment — not every new action star takes the trouble. She comes off looking every bit as convincing as one of the Expendables, dropping half a dozen henchmen in quick succession as she pivots in the dark. The movie doesn’t need to be realistic or even remotely plausible, since it’s dumbing down an already brain-dead genre. Still, it would’ve been nice if the dialogue were a little more punchy (“Get off my plane!”). Shown to critics on the big screen but produced for Prime Video, the movie isn’t mixed for anything better than TV, where cheap effects (like the CG fireball that flips the presidential limo) are to be expected.
The action heats up in the last half hour, as Rutledge closes in on the first family. It feels like a mistake to have involved Sutton’s daughter as much as “G20” does, cutting back to tech-savvy Serena’s attempts to hack the system — which inevitably introduces a degree of child endangerment (the ingredient that turned Bond into a babysitter in “No Time to Die”) alongside a few “Home Alone”-style antics. Riggen surely felt that audiences needed a reason to care about Sutton, when it’s perfectly clear Davis can do that all by herself.
