Even when it’s a little ridiculous, formula works…

While no one will ever accuse G20 of being high concept cinema, it’s actually a well-executed action movie that doesn’t bog us down in exposition and just gets us to the overwrought entertainment value of the situation.

When the G20 summit comes under siege, U.S. President Danielle Sutton (Viola Davis) becomes the number one target. After evading capture by the attackers, she must outsmart the enemy to protect her family, defend her country and safeguard world leaders.

Following the playbook to a tee, G20 is a perfectly acceptable mid-grade action movie that we would have seen made anywhere between 1987 and 1995.  It’ll never light the world on fire, but even when it gets a little too maudlin and overly “rah-rah” America it’s still pretty fun.

Director Patricia Riggen has been working across genres for nearly 20 years now and effortlessly dives into the action genre never staging any sequences that are outside of her performers capabilities and keeps the narrative moving at a healthy clip, even when it throws logic out the window gets a little too hammy in dropping a little too much exposition or emotional in the pre-prescribed moments.  The script doesn’t stretch itself anywhere unnecessary either which isn’t always the case.

The film always intended to lean into those B-Movie beats but manages to give it all a B+ shine to it thanks to an entire ensemble who knew exactly the kind of movie that they were making from top to bottom.

Viola Davis steps into the role of embattled President “Bad-Ass” (a.k.a Danielle Sutton) pretty effortlessly as a war hero thrust into public life and she never betrays the airs or the ideal of being a flawed on screen action hero, thrust into a situation that forced her to do the right thing.  Had Harrison Ford and Air Force One not been around back in 1997 and replaced with this script we may have very well seen the one and only Meryl Streep kicking ass and taking names with the same gravitas that Viola does here.

Antony Starr from Prime Video’s The Boys is his effective self as the scenery chewing bad guy, but in an obvious to move to keep costs down only Anthony Anderson as “The First Gentleman”, Clark Gregg as the Vice-President and Ramon Rodriguez as Secret Service Agent Manny Ruiz get any real chance to operate in President Viola’s orbit.  She is just that good of an actor that it really doesn’t take much to buy her in any situation.

Ultimately in G20, everyone involved is actually having “fun” and I’m sorry but as a career watcher, that actually matters.  So enjoy this subtle but earned spin on the pseudo political thriller that is light on the geo-political significance and heavy on kicking a little bad guy ass.