A judo expert President wastes a veritable smorgasbord of international goons in new action pic G20 – streaming on Prime Video. Enjoying the heck out of seeing Davis’ POTUS going up against a Kiwi-played baddie called Rutledge? Flicks’ own Daniel Rutledge.
American movies have given us plenty of American presidents kicking arse. “Get off my plane,” Harrison Ford grumbles in Air Force One before killing a terrorist played by Gary Oldman with his bare hands, after taking a few others out with an MP5. Samuel L Jackson calls a terrorist a “motherf**ker” before downing him with an MP7 in Big Game. Jamie Foxx drops a one-liner about his shoes while repeatedly kicking a terrorist in the face in White House Down, then empties the clip of an MP9 into a Russian’s torso.
Beyond terrorists, we’ve also seen US presidents waste supernatural creatures onscreen. Bill Pullman pilots a fighter jet against aliens in Independence Day, Benjamin Walker fells bloodsuckers in Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and Barry Bostwick destroys werewolf Nazis in the dreary, braindead ‘comedy’ of FDR: American Badass!
G20 is the latest American movie to centre on an American president kicking arse. But it has something radically different to any previous film centring on a US president wasting bad guys. It stars EGOT Viola Davis as the Commander in Chief.
You can barely count on two hands how many actresses have achieved EGOT status. You can count on one hand how many also have the Triple Crown of Acting, and on one finger those who did it this millennium and are still working today. Look, you could slice it different ways, but by any respected industry standard, Viola Davis is one of the greatest actors of all time.
Which makes it all the more amazing that she stars as a judo expert slash firearms specialist slash quasi-superhero prez in this Die Hard-esque caper, ruthlessly dispatching a couple dozen or so terrorists. Does she do it with a winky smugness, like those has-beens in Sharknado and the like? No way.
She acts the shit out of this role, stony faced for all of it and even teary eyed in some of it, going as hard as if it was a sequel to The Help or Fences. We’ve seen Davis in schlocky stuff like Suicide Squad and Beautiful Creatures, but this portrayal of President Danielle Sutton represents something new, very cool and likely her highest bodycount yet, although The Woman King wasn’t far behind.
There’s an unusual tonal mishmash in G20 that is very much a feature rather than a bug in that it’s often hilarious even when it’s being melodramatic. There’s straight-up levity, with Wakanda and 007 jokes thrown in, as well as a British prime minister who is a cartoonishly pompous caricature like the Brits we used to see in ‘90s Hong Kong movies. But in general, it plays things especially straight, despite the undeniable silliness of it all.
When Davis pauses fighting terrorists halfway through the movie to monologue at said posh geezer about a traumatic battle experience during the Iraq War, she weeps and the score goes all sombre and heartstring-tuggy. It’s serious and Davis brings gravitas—but it’s happening within this heightened, bonkers action romp. So some viewers may find it moving, but many will find the same scene funny, which is an impressive trick that amused me a lot.
Of course, a few minutes after telling that sad, sad story, Davis is dishing out more R-rated violence on the baddies. In the movies mentioned above we saw US presidents kill Russian, Middle Eastern and British terrorists, but G20—as the name suggests—has arguably the most multicultural presidential slaughter yet, with a veritable smorgasbord of international goons.
Leading them all is New Zealand star Antony Starr as the incredibly named ‘Rutledge’. In the film we learn his first name is Edward, but in the promotional material and end credits, it’s just Rutledge. Mint. He’s portrayed as an Aussie, but still, he’s Rutledge.
Rutledge is a semi bleached blonde menace who leads a gang of mercenary killers that take the world leaders hostage, then deploy deep fake videos to crash the global economy to inflate the value of their stolen Bitcoin. Like Davis’s prez he’s also a traumatised war veteran and big mad about corruption or something. Of course, it all leads up to a one-on-one showdown: Danielle vs Rutledge.
Meanwhile, the president’s teenaged daughter (Marsai Martin) has mean as computer hacking skills and somehow uses them to hotwire rooftop satellites in order to help her mum save the world. David James, the bad guy from District 9, is also in the mix as a big mean terrorist, while Anthony Anderson from black-ish endearingly plays the First Gentleman.
But this is very much a Viola Davis show. She ends the lives of mercenaries with her martial arts expertise, various kitchen utensils and a Glock pistol, but she’s at her most thrilling when in John Wick mode wielding a Brügger & Thomet MP9.
G20 won’t win Davis another Oscar, but it does make a strong case for her as the most formidable on-screen US President to date. It’s funny and silly, but also bloody and oddly sincere; an action flick that delivers intense shootouts, enjoyably jarring tonal shifts, and arguably the most decorated actor alive regulating terrorists with a submachine gun.
