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‘Heads of State’ Review: John Cena and Idris Elba Demonstrate How World Leaders Ought to Handle Terrorism

The U.S. president (John Cena) and U.K. prime minister (Idris Helba) cast diplomacy aside in a far-fetched but highly enjoyable action comedy.

After opening with a spectacular shootout involving a tertiary but important undercover character named Noel Bisset (played by Priyanka Chopra Jonas) — caught in the crossfire of Spain’s messy La Tomatina Festival — the film introduces its incredibly capable world leaders. “Nobody” director Ilya Naishuller takes gags that have no business working (like Derringer getting a face full of nanny goat teats during that border crossing) and milks them for laughs, adding original solutions to otherwise familiar action scenes (such as a mid-fight shot from inside some guy’s mouth, where the camera is positioned behind the thug’s missing tooth). Much of “Heads of State” amounts to overplayed action tropes, and yet screenwriter Harrison Query (whose idea this was) and veterans Josh Appelbaum and André Nemec (who share credit) give Naishuller and their cast ample opportunity to freshen things up, whether through original staging or reasonably funny banter.

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