In G20, a new Viola Davis action flick that began streaming on Amazon Prime Video today, the American President fearlessly shepherds her fellow world leaders through a crisis as if they were lost little lambs. She dutifully cleans up the mess created by the bumbling buffoon of a British Prime Minister (played by Douglas Hodge). She graciously accepts a compliment from the Italian president of the International Monetary Fund (played by Sabrina Impacciatore) on her strength, confidence, and height. And, of course, she beats up the bad guys and—here’s the real kicker—saves the world from a global economic collapse. A little too ironic, don’t you think?
Maybe this fantasy of U.S. American heroism would be easier—or, indeed, possible—to swallow in the ’90s, when The West Wing was on TV and the idea of the U.S. as the leader of the free world wasn’t quite so laughable. But at a time when the current President is waging a global trade war that’s causing stocks to plummet? When he’s threatening to “acquire” American allies like a Roman emperor? When, even before Donald Trump’s second term, the U.S. has been consistently isolating itself from U.N. allies to cast minority votes against ceasefires and climate change action? In times like these, the idea that world leaders would look to the U.S. to lead it through a crisis comes off as more than a far-fetched fantasy. It’s downright absurd.
Directed by Mexican filmmaker Patricia Riggen, with a screenplay written by Caitlin Parrish, Erica Weiss, and Logan & Noah Miller, G20 stars Davis (also an executive producer on the film) as the fictional President of the United States, Danielle Sutton. President Sutton travels with her husband (Anthony Anderson) and two children to South Africa for the annual G20 summit, a conference where leaders from the world’s wealthiest countries gather in a show of global economic cooperation.
President Sutton has a vague “togetherness” plan she’s trying to push, but that quickly falls to the wayside when an extremist group led by an Aussie crypto-bro terrorist (Antony Starr) hijacks the summit and takes the world leaders hostage. The plan? Have each politician read out a phrase that will allow them to create a deep fake of said politician saying anything they want. This will boost the bad guys’ bitcoin stock, and make them rich. Or something.
G20 is hardly the first, or even hundredth, action movie to indulge in this patriotic fairytale. (After all, the Pentagon offers grants and other financial support to movies that positively depict the U.S. military, and has done so for decades.) But it is, possibly, the worst-timed offender to date.
It’s hard to suspend your disbelief for this alternate, action-movie version of the world where European and Asian leaders are stumbling through the dark—led only by the shining light of the U.S. of A.—when, in reality, any American with friends abroad is receiving daily texts demanding to know what the hell is going on in our country. The plot of G20 is nonsensical because it has to be. Any version grounded in reality would make it impossible to root for the so-called good guys.
Look, at times, G20 was fun. I don’t think it’s any worse than the mindless political action films that have come before it, like Antoine Fuqua’s dull Has Fallen franchise. With G20, director Patricia Riggen tells a concise visual story, even as the script flounders. The effects aren’t great, but the fight sequences—like a daring escape on the roof of an elevator, or a Home Alone-esque booby-trapped kitchen—are zippy and creative. And Davis is an Oscar winner for a reason. She eats up the screen by turning corny moments into watchable ones and delivering generic lines of dialogue with gravitas. Maybe if G20 was set in some make-believe conference for made-up government officials, it wouldn’t feel quite so ridiculous.
But G20 insists on taking place at a real conference in the real world, at a time when American leaders couldn’t be further from the heroes the world needs. It feels like an Onion article of a movie—except, as far as I can tell, no one who made this is joking.
