David Farnor | On 06, Jul 2025

Director: Ilya Naishuller
Cast: Idris Elba, John Cena, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Paddy Considine, Carla Gugino, Jack Quaid, Stephen Root
Certificate: 12

Sometimes, a film that feels like its premise was generated by an algorithm can be a soul-destroying slog. Sometimes, it’s exactly what you want. Heads of State, Amazon’s latest action comedy, is the latter – a boilerplate blockbuster that you can almost see following a formula in realtime, but in a way that’s massively entertaining. If it’s a box-ticking exercise, it ticks those boxes with rocket launchers and grenades.

The premise is right out of a 90s playbook, and there’s a real charm to that knowing throwback vibe – not least because the cast bring it to life with such easygoing energy. John Cena continues his campaign to be in every movie ever made as US President Will Derringer, a film star turned world leader who speaks before he thinks and mostly thinks about whether people like him. Idris Elba plays Sam Clarke, the veteran Prime Minister of the UK who is as jaded by politics as the public are by him. The former has been in the six months, the latter six years. To say they don’t see eye to eye is putting it mildly.

When a joint press conference goes wrong, however, the pair try to restore their PR image and go for a shared ride on Air Force One to a NATO conference – only for the plane to be shot down. Alone, stranded and unsure who to trust, they have no option but to work together. What ensues is a globe-trotting trek from a Belarusian forest to Trieste, all the while trying to evade capture from the arms dealer Viktor Gradov (Paddy Considine), who has a grudge to get off his chest.

Along the way, the duo cross paths with two ruthless assassins (Aleksandr Kuznetsov and Katrina Durden) and have to juggle their deputies – the grimly realistic Quincy (Richard Coyle) and stern Elizabeth (Carla Gugino) – recruit a hacker (the always-excellent Stephen Root) and team up with Marty (the hilarious Jack Quaid), a safe house agent with an approach to home security that makes Home Alone look tame. But we start in Buñol, Spain, where an operation amid the world-famous tomato-throwing festival goes awry, leaving all the wrong kinds of red over an MI6 team led by Noel (Priyanka Chopra Jonas – so fantastic here that she could easily have her own franchise).

If that sounds like a lot, it is – but the script (from Josh Appelbaum, André Nemec and Harrison Query) juggles every player and strand with breathless wit. One recurring motif sees characters dismiss their absence off camera for the past hour, while we’re speedily caught up in an amusingly hyperactive montage. It’s an inspired idea and it typifies the film’s approach to its material: this is a bullet-spraying romp with no shortage of heart and humour. Nobody helmer Ilya Naishuller directs each set piece with a relentless pace but comfortably knows when to pause for a one-liner or character moment.

None of this would work, though, without a rock-solid double-act. John Cena is exceptional as the self-centred, shallow commander in chief, deftly balancing naive tenderness with idiotic brawn to laugh-out-loud effect – he’s never less than charismatic and is a natural foil for Idris Elba’s swaggering heft. Elba, of course, is a confident action star who convincingly holds his own in a punch-up, but brings a straight-faced pathos and weariness to his politician, and that brings a surprising earnestness to their bromance – underneath the star-spangled explosions is a gently topical tale of the importance of cooperation over nationalist isolationism.

The result is an old-fashioned piece of bright and breezy popcorn entertainment – if the algorithm’s aiming for 1990s blockbuster, then its calculations are spot-on.

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