G20 was released worldwide by Amazon MGM Studios via Prime Video on April 10, 2025. The film received generally mixed reviews from critics.
Plot
In Budapest, former Australian Special Forces Corporal Edward Rutledge and his mercenaries try to acquire a $70 million cryptocurrency wallet by chasing a woman down the streets and finally drugging her into a coma in a nearby pub. Meanwhile, US President and Army veteran Danielle Sutton is publicly embarrassed by the rebellious antics of her daughter Serena who breaks the RFID Technology and sneaks out of The White House to go partying, leading Sutton and her husband, First Gentleman Derek to bring Serena and her brother Demetrius with them to the G20 summit of world leaders in South Africa.
Arriving for the summit at a heavily fortified hotel in Cape Town, Sutton and Treasury Secretary Joanna Worth present their plan to empower struggling sub-Saharan farmers through access to digital currency. Infiltrating the summit, Rutledge and his men ambush the guests' security details, including Sutton's own Secret Service Counter Assault Team, and seize control of the hotel. As the members of the summit are taken hostage, Sutton and Secret Service Agent Manny Ruiz slip away with UK Prime Minister Oliver Everett, head of the International Monetary Fund Elena Romano, and First Lady of South Korea Han Minh-Seo, while Derek rescues his children and evades capture.
Broadcasting his actions to the world, Rutledge accuses Sutton and her fellow leaders of corruption and urges citizens around the globe to place all their money in cryptocurrency, outside of governmental control. He uses the hostages' voices and likenesses to create deepfake videos supporting his claims, leaking the doctored footage to the press, and the surge in crypto investment sends the value of his own wallet soaring. On the roof, Serena manages to send a message to Vice President Harold Mosely, but turncoat Secret Service Agent Darden captures Derek.
Fighting off mercenaries, which include Suidlanders, Sutton and a wounded Ruiz guide the others to 'the Beast', the presidential armored limo. Rutledge executes the Prime Minister of Australia and the President of South Korea before beating Derek over the radio, forcing Sutton to reveal her location. Darden finds her but is killed by Ruiz, and Serena and Demetrius are saved by Melokuhle and Lesedi, South African government agents posing as hotel staff. Han rejoins the hostages and finds her husband's body, while Romano and Everett drive the Beast through the hotel perimeter and Lesedi destroys the mercenaries' missiles.
Everett informs Mosely of Sutton's plan to save the hostages, and Ruiz cuts the hotel's power as Melokuhle and Lesedi take over the mercenaries' surveillance feed. Killing more of Rutledge's men, Sutton surrenders herself to save her husband and Worth, allowing Rutledge to manipulate her image in a final deepfake that crashes the American economy and gains him $150 billion. Accusing Sutton — who rose to prominence after a heroic photo while serving in Iraq — of profiting off the deaths of his brothers-in-arms, Rutledge shoots Derek. Stabbed by Han, Rutledge drops the wallet and flees, and a strike team rescues the hostages.
Derek is saved by his bulletproof vest, and Sutton realizes Worth is in league with Rutledge, who takes Serena at gunpoint to escape by helicopter. Sutton confronts him with the wallet, the only means of accessing the money, which is knocked into the forest below. Before he can shoot Serena, Sutton tackles Rutledge out of the helicopter to his death, and the strike team pulls the helicopter to safety. In the aftermath, Worth is incarcerated, Ruiz recovers, and President Sutton's plan is successfully adopted by the G20, as she and her family return home to the White House.
It was announced in November 2022 that Viola Davis was set to star in and produce the film, with Patricia Riggen set to direct.[3] Production was impacted in July 2023 as a result of the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike. The film had been granted an interim agreement though the production was not set to commence filming despite this,[4] and Davis announcing the following day she would not film until the conclusion of the strike.[5]
G20 was released in 240 territories globally on Amazon Prime Video on April 10, 2025.[8]
Reception
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 57% of 70 critics' reviews are positive.The website's consensus reads: "Too straight-faced to have as much fun with its juicy premise as it could, G20 is more pedestrian than presidential but does have a commanding lead in Viola Davis."[9]Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 53 out of 100, based on 18 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.[10]
Robert Daniels of RogerEbert.com gave the film two and a half stars out of four and wrote, "Harrison Ford's films succeeded because Ford portrayed himself as a symbol that could be bent or complicated by showing, not telling. This is why a film like Air Force One, admittedly a rah-rah post-Cold War film, has far more to say about America's unconscious vulnerability as a world power than G20 about the war in the Middle East or America as an imperialist force. Still, the film's thunderous intentions don't wholly distract from its more exhilarating sequences."[11]
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