Plot
A joint team of MI6 agents and CIA officers, led by senior agent Noel Bisset, are in Buñol, Spain, during the La Tomatina festival, chasing Russian arms dealer Viktor Gradov. Gradov outsmarts them, and his men kill Bisset's team and acquire a link to ECHELON, the global surveillance program used by the Anglosphere intelligence alliance Five Eyes.
Meanwhile, Sam Clarke, the UK Prime Minister, receives a state visit from the newly elected United States President Will Derringer, a former action movie star. The two do not get along, and a public argument breaks out in front of the press, after which their respective aides Quincy and Bradshaw convince them to fly to the upcoming NATO summit in Trieste together aboard Air Force One to present a united front to the world.
During the flight, Air Force One is shot down by Gradov's terrorists. Clarke and Derringer escape using parachutes but are stranded in Belarus and presumed dead by the rest of the world. Realizing that someone in their inner circles has betrayed them to Gradov, the two hitch a ride to Poland with a friendly Belarusian lady and seek shelter with CIA officer Marty Comer in Warsaw. Gradov's men, led by assassins Sasha and Olga, attack the hideout, and Comer is shot in the head. Clarke and Derringer escape with the help of Bisset, who survived Gradov's attack in Spain.
Bisset tells Clarke and Derringer that the NATO summit has been derailed due to Gradov's hacker Hammond breaking in to the Echelon and leaking national security files to the public. Derringer also learns that Clarke and Bisset were in a relationship prior to Clarke running for office. The three embark for the summit in Italy by train, where they are attacked by another of Gradov's assassins. Hammond, tired of being forced to work for Gradov, kills the assassin but is mortally wounded. He instructs the trio to go to his former office in Zadar, Croatia, to find out who betrayed them. They locate old chat logs that implicate Derringer's aide Bradshaw. They are again attacked by Gradov's assassins, and Clarke is seemingly killed in an explosion.
Derringer and Bisset arrive in Trieste for the summit, where they learn that the real traitor is Vice President Elizabeth Kirk, who implicated Bradshaw as a false trail. The assassins working for her and Gradov chase Derringer and Bisset through Trieste. The two are saved by Clarke, who survived the explosion. Olga is killed when her grenade launcher goes off by accident during the chase, and the trio arrives at the summit in time to prevent the dissolution of NATO at the hands of Kirk. Derringer confronts her, but she is shot and killed by Gradov, whose assassins assault the summit. Bisset fights and kills Sasha, while Clarke and Derringer pursue Gradov, killing him when the latter throws a statue at his helicopter, causing it to crash.
Two months later, the relationships within NATO have been repaired, and Clarke and Derringer have become close friends. In a post-credits scene, Comer is revealed to have survived the attack in Warsaw due to a metal plate in his head and is approached by Bisset while attempting to pick up women at a bar.
Production
It was announced in October 2020 that Amazon Studios had picked up the project, which would star Idris Elba and John Cena, the pair having previously co-starred together in The Suicide Squad (2021). [3] Two years later in October 2022, Ilya Naishuller was hired to direct the film. [4] In April 2023, Priyanka Chopra joined the cast. [5] Paddy Considine, Stephen Root, Carla Gugino, Jack Quaid, Sarah Niles and Richard Coyle would be added to the cast the following month. [6]
Filming began in London in May 2023. [7] [8] Filming continued in Liverpool's St George's Hall in June 2023. [9] Later in July and August, location shooting moved to Trieste for some chase scenes. [10] In May 2024, additional scenes were shot in Belgrade, Serbia. [11] [12]
Reception
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes , 68% of 110 critics' reviews are positive.The website's consensus reads: "Heads of State's lighthearted handling of geopolitics may be too cute by half, but the comedic alliance between Idris Elba and John Cena remains strong in this slick action flick." [14] Metacritic , which uses a weighted average , assigned the film a score of 57 out of 100, based on 19 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews. [15]
Matt Zoller Seitz of RogerEbert.com gave the film two and a half out of four stars and wrote, "All in all, it's stupid fun, done with enough panache that its thin story and sometimes too-glib attitude doesn't hurt it too much." [16]
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