Heads of State, on the video bonus: a more clever buddy movie than he looks (critic)
John Cena and Idris Elba play two politicians metamorphosed as a hero of action in this steeple and rather funny comedy, signed by the director of Nobody.
Difficult to get excited for action films that land in tight ranks on streaming platforms – from Netflix to Prime Video, from Back in Action has Shadow Force – More and more mediocre and interchangeable. From the intro of Heads of Statehowever, we lift an eyebrow: an operation of the British secret services is core there by terrorists in full Tomatina, this Spanish festival where the participants throw ripe tomatoes on top of each other in joy and good humor. Very quickly, hemoglobin mixes with tomato juice, and this gigantic red red color is filmed have enough humor, energy and style so that we say that there is a “real” director with controllers. In this case: Ilya Naishuller, Dirty Gosse Author Author in 2015 of the FPS Time Hardcore Henrywhich opened him in large the doors of Hollywood, then Nobody, John Wick With Bob Odenkirk in Monsieur-Tou-le-Monde (or rather in Monsieur-Personne) which passed without screaming in Keanu Reeves mode and smashed all the dirty types that crossed its path.
The outrageous and cartoon tone now characteristic of Naishuller is at the heart of Heads of State,, Buddy Movie Staging two politicians who hate themselves cordially. On our right, a freshly elected United States president (John Cena), a former action film hero who does not make much difference between reality and fiction-a mix between Reagan, Trump and the Schwarzenegger Governor of California. On our left, a Prime Minister in pain in the polls, played with cool and a touch of weariness by Idris Elba. The threat of a very upset mysterious international criminal – upset to the point of exploding Air Force One in full flight – will cause the two politicians to bring together. Elderly in the middle of Europe, they will be forced to unite their strengths, to show the muscles, to take out the guns, then to make everything fart, during an explosive crossing of the continent which must lead them to a summit of NATO. With, in passing, a little helping hand by Priyanka Chopra Jones as an agent of the Mi6 lover of miracum word games, and Jack Quaid, as back as if he arrived straight from the set of Novocaine.
So we are in a sort of Tango and cash Reviewed in the sauce White House Downand the idea of Naishuller is to make the scenes succeed the increasingly teeth and incredible scenes succeeding, embellished with more or less sophisticated visual gags and kindly gravelly humor (the most striking passage in this register implies very close contact between the face of John Cena and the wisdoms of a goat). The alchemy between the two main actors (who had already met in the credits of The Suicide Squad by James Gunn), essential to any good comedy of friends, cements everything: Elba does the sad clown very well when Cena confirms her talent to camp the endearing couillons. As for the voluntarily moron and nagging aspect of the whole, it is temperate ultimately by a very reasonable ode to international mutual aid and multilateralism … from there to regret that Heads of State Did not go out in theaters, where he would have served as a big summer release in multiplexes? Let’s exaggerate anything: it is probably in streaming that this film is best. After all, the Buddy Movies to which Naishuller refers here were above all the pleasures of Videoclub.
Hugo SOYAN
Heads of Statefrom Ilya Naishuller, with John Cena, Idris Elba, Priyanka Chopra Jones… Available on Prime Video.
