The most recent US presidential election casts a gloomy shadow over "G20," an action thriller debuting on Amazon Prime about Viola Davis as the American president combating a terrorist attack led by Homelander himself, Antony Starr. We don't get political here, but a film like this in today's climate makes that impossible- for half of the United States population, it's an ugly reminder of what could have been; let's keep our opinions to ourselves about the other half.
Davis plays Danielle Sutton, the president and Iraq veteran who we first meet disciplining her daughter (Caila Marsai Martin) for sneaking out of the White House to go underage drinking. It goes viral, which is a real problem since she'll be attending the titular G20 summit, where she'll be trying to gain support of an act designed to give farmers access to some form of digital currency. The press, of course, want to instead grill her on the supposed lack of control she has on her children versus, you know, actual presidential activities. Ah, American politics- gotta love 'em.
But at the summit, a man named Rutledge (Starr) uses his connections at a contract company who'll be blustering security for the event, to weasel his way in. A few internet blackouts, door lock changes, and boom, twenty world leaders all trapped in a single location, guns to their heads. Only during the initial attack, the president and her secret service agent Manny (Ramón Rodríguez), along with a few others, manage to escape down a laundry chute. This really sets off Rutledge, who plans to record the hostages reading a list of words so that they can generate deepfakes, spewing nonsense about the economy to cripple it. Why the captives don't read it with a heavy accent or something, to help show that it's not real, is beyond the logic of the script and its four credited screenwriters.
So yeah, it's another "Die Hard" clone, and you know, it's almost refreshing to see a big(ish)-budget one of these, but I do wish we didn't need to run the story through all the cliches at the script-factory: hero's loved-one captured? Numerous double-agents? Talky villain? False ending? Check, check, check and, *checks notes*, ah yes, check.
At least the action is convincing, thanks to the lean and effective direction by Patricia Riggen. I counted only two moments of obvious CGI, and one was a brief establishing shot of the Air Force One. I'd say it was a cute wink at the genre, but that would be to suggest this film had any real wit to it.
As someone who enjoys watching an aging Charles Bronson or Liam Neeson take down dudes half their age, Viola Davis is as convincing as any 59 year old could be. But the film goes out of its way to put her in situations that try and frame unbelievable actions as believably as possible. She seldom needs to fight more than one baddie on her own, and they always seem to happen where she can grab a frying pan, jammed gun, you name it. But even then, the movie can't commit to this notion: early on we see that Sutton has a bum knee, but it never comes up in the many fights she wins; I kept waiting for an enemy to exploit this, like John McClane and his lack of shoes, but it never happens.
"G20" is a B-movie with an A-cast, and Viola has the screen-presence and conviction to have a second-life as an action star. I just wish a star of her caliber had gotten offered a really good script, filled with originality instead of familiarity.
