Heads of State Review: Elba and Cena Carry the Ticket

The film fabricates a world where diplomacy is conducted through explosions and international relations are distilled into the friction between two men. Its central conceit places the American President and the British Prime Minister at the heart of a violent conspiracy, jettisoning them from the insulated cabin of Air Force One into a frantic scramble for survival across Europe.

The premise is audaciously simple: the leaders of the Western world, presumed dead, must navigate a hostile landscape with only each other for support. One is U.S. President Will Derringer (John Cena), an action-movie star whose political career is his latest and most unconvincing role.

His counterpart is the U.K.’s Prime Minister Sam Clarke (Idris Elba), a weary, career statesman who embodies a more traditional form of power. From this opposition, the film telegraphs its intentions clearly. This is an exercise in pure spectacle, a narrative built on the chemistry of its leads and the relentless momentum of its action, not the weight of its political ideas.

The Anatomy of an Alliance

The film’s energy source is the dynamic between its two leads, each a distinct archetype of modern power. John Cena’s President Derringer is a fascinating construction, a leader whose authority is derived entirely from the glow of celebrity.

He is a vessel for a kind of naive American optimism, a well-meaning figure whose political savvy begins and ends with a good photo opportunity. Cena plays him not as a fool, but as a man acting out a script he fundamentally believes in, his confidence a meticulously rehearsed performance that cracks the moment it collides with reality. His physicality, usually a signifier of strength, here becomes a comedic liability, a reminder that the skills of a movie set do not translate to the grit of an actual gunfight.

In direct opposition stands Idris Elba’s Prime Minister Sam Clarke, the embodiment of weary, institutional knowledge. Clarke is the career politician, the former soldier who views Derringer’s theatricality with a deep-seated cynicism.

He is the film’s grounding force, and Elba portrays him with a potent sense of gravity. His performance finds its comedic edge not in delivering jokes but in the simmering heat of his reactions. The sharpest humor arises from his crisp, exasperated delivery, a testament to an actor who can create friction with little more than a clipped syllable or a disapproving stare.

Their relationship is a study in symbiotic friction. The continuous bickering, punctuated by recurring grievances like the infamous “fish and chips” summit, is the engine of the narrative. It is through this constant abrasion that their characters are sharpened and defined.

Their forced partnership evolves from pure antagonism toward a grudging respect, a bond forged in the crucible of shared firefights and narrow escapes. Whether this transformation feels entirely earned is a question the film leaves suspended in the air, content to let the sheer charm of its stars bridge the gaps in logic.

Kinetics of Chaos

The film operates according to a specific cinematic grammar of perpetual motion, a language director Ilya Naishuller has perfected. His visual style is unmistakable: a kinetic, almost violently energetic approach that treats every frame as an opportunity for movement.

The camera is not a passive observer; it is a participant, hurtling through spaces with a zippy, wide-angle ferocity that distorts geography and imbues every action with a sense of cartoonish impact. This is filmmaking as a shot of pure adrenaline, where the frantic editing and relentless pace are not flaws but the central, organizing principles of its aesthetic. The result is an experience of pure surface, a slick and exhilarating ride that has little interest in the quiet moments between its loud declarations of mayhem.

This vision is most potent in its series of elaborate set pieces. The narrative opens on the surreal canvas of La Tomatina, a Spanish festival where a sea of crimson pulp becomes the backdrop for an espionage mission gone wrong, mixing blood and tomato juice with anarchic glee.

From there, the attack on Air Force One serves as a claustrophobic ballet of violence that cleanly severs the protagonists from their world of order. The film hits a high point of invention during a safe house shootout, a sequence that operates like a Rube Goldberg machine of destruction, where every ricochet and explosion is part of a gleefully deranged choreography. The climax, a destructive car chase featuring the presidential limousine known as “The Beast,” is a testament to brute-force spectacle, a display of vehicular combat that prioritizes impact over plausibility.

Within these sequences, the film finds its most successful fusion of action and comedy. The humor is not a pause from the violence; it is born from it—a punchline delivered via a well-timed explosion, a joke underscored by a ridiculous stunt.

The PG-13 rating, however, acts as a governor on the engine of Naishuller’s usual mayhem. One can feel the sanitizing effect, a deliberate pulling back from the more visceral style seen in his previous work. The sharp edges are filed down, creating a version of his signature chaos that is palatable for a wider audience, but perhaps less distinctive.

The Peripheral Players

Beyond its central duo, the film is populated by figures who flicker in and out of focus, their impact often inversely proportional to their screen time. Priyanka Chopra Jonas embodies Noel Bisset, an MI6 agent of formidable capability, whose own story of being presumed dead mirrors the protagonists’.

She emerges as a hardened, physically dominant force, yet the narrative structure exiles her for a vast stretch of its runtime. Her character functions less as a consistent third lead and more as a convenient plot device, reappearing when her skills are required, her romantic history with Clarke a narrative shorthand that never achieves any real weight.

In stark contrast is the brief, explosive appearance of Jack Quaid as Marty Comer, a CIA station chief whose manic enthusiasm is a spectacle in itself. In a single scene, clad in a Hawaiian shirt and cradling a monitor amidst a shootout, Quaid injects a shot of pure, unadulterated energy that is more memorable than entire subplots. His performance is a miniature masterclass in making an indelible impression, a chaotic burst of personality that illuminates the screen before vanishing just as quickly.

This economy of character is absent elsewhere. The film’s antagonists and allies are largely placeholders, filled by actors of considerable talent who are given little to do. Paddy Considine’s arms dealer, Viktor Gradov, serves as the ostensible villain, yet he registers as a one-note threat, a generic face of menace without the depth to be truly compelling.

Other accomplished performers, from Carla Gugino to Stephen Root, appear in roles so thin they feel like cinematic ghosts, their presence a reminder of squandered potential. They are names on a poster, but on screen, they are merely part of the scenery.

The Scaffolding of Spectacle

The plot, a sprawling conspiracy to dismantle NATO, serves less as a narrative and more as a functional scaffold from which to hang the film’s action sequences. It is a framework built on a foundation of pure convenience, where logic is readily sacrificed for forward momentum and characters arrive in locations with a speed that defies both time and geography.

The story’s progression is a series of nonsensical but necessary steps, each one designed to propel its heroes from one chaotic set piece to the next. The internal coherence of the world is secondary to the immediate thrill of the moment.

The screenplay itself is a mixed tapestry. The dialogue flickers with moments of genuine wit, but more often settles for serviceable banter that reinforces the established character dynamics. There is a persistent self-awareness running through the script, a winking acknowledgment of its own absurdity.

It gestures toward thematic substance—the hollowness of celebrity politics versus the gravity of true statecraft, the looming threat of isolationism given voice by a villain’s late-stage monologue—but these ideas are treated as decorative elements, not inquiries.

They are introduced and then brushed aside in favor of the next chase or explosion. Structurally, the film feels overlong, its nearly two-hour runtime stretching the thin narrative past its breaking point. The plot’s major twists, particularly the reveal of the true villain, are deployed not as earned revelations but as perfunctory maneuvers, mechanical contrivances to keep the machinery of the story clanking forward.

An Entertaining Contradiction

The film exists as a curious contradiction, a machine assembled from both high-grade and spare parts. Its engine is the potent chemistry between its leads and the visual flair of its action, while its chassis is a rickety construction of narrative convenience and underdeveloped characters.

The experience is one of watching a spectacle that is fully aware of its own flimsy foundations. It does not ask for serious consideration, but for surrender to its relentless momentum. In this, it is a success. This is a frictionless piece of disposable entertainment, precision-engineered for the streaming landscape where content is a current, not a monument.

It achieves the modest goal it sets for itself: to be a big, loud, star-driven diversion. Ultimately, the entire enterprise is held aloft by the sheer force of its central performances, a testament to how the charisma of two actors can animate even the most hollow of cinematic vessels.

Heads of State hits Prime Video on July 2, 2025.

Full Credits

Director: Ilya Naishuller

Writers: Josh Appelbaum, André Nemec, Harrison Query

Producers and Executive Producers: Peter Safran, John Rickard

Cast: John Cena, Idris Elba, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Jack Quaid, Paddy Considine, Stephen Root, Carla Gugino, Sarah Niles, Richard Coyle

Director of Photography (Cinematographer): Ben Davis

Editors: Tom Harrison‑Read

Composer: Steven Price