"Heads of State" Trailer: John Cena and Idris Elba Are World Leaders on the Run in This New Explosive Action-Comedy from the Director of 'Nobody'
When a clueless U.S. President and a brilliant U.K. Prime Minister are targeted by a global conspiracy, they must team up to survive.
Look, before you go, what kind of world would it have to be where it seems perfectly normal for John Cena to be playing the U.S. President, the leader of the free world? What a completely idiotic idea. Weeeell, it’s the same world where Idris Elba is the U.K. Prime Minister. Which, to be fair, is a pretty great piece of casting. But put them together in an extremely high-pressure situation where they become targets of a global conspiracy, and suddenly, you’ve got something that just might be crazy enough to work.
So, the movie gods taketh, but they also giveth. And Cena and Elba just might be the most epic, unlikely leadership duo ever to grace the screen. It could be enough to make us place our hands on our hearts and kiss a bald eagle before saying, thanks movie gods for granting us such a wild, unexpected patriotic gift.
Heads of State is not to be taken seriously, as it's a straight-up action comedy at its most ridiculous and over-the-top. It comes from Russian filmmaker Ilya Naishuller, who previously delivered the wildly enjoyable action comedy Nobody, featuring Bob Odenkirk as a retired government assassin turned ordinary family man. In that film, Odenkirk stepped away from his comedic chops for a bit and got to live every guy's fantasy of becoming a bad-ass action hero. Naishuller is also the mad genius behind Hardcore Henry, an ultra-violent action sci-fi thriller shot entirely through the POV of an unseen protagonist, much like a first-person shooter video game. In Heads of State, Naishuller, however, appears to be going for big laughs in between bigger explosions and highly choreographed fight scenes. It's John Wick but if directed by Judd Apatow!
The premise is pretty straightforward: John Cena plays Will Derringer, the President of the United States. He’s also a complete moron, someone who only got elected because of his popularity as a big-time Hollywood action star. He looks good holding a fake machine gun, but when it comes time to step up in a national crisis, he's useless. Whereas Idris Elba’s Sam Clarke, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, is a whip-smart leader with a real military background and the know-how to navigate any emergency he’s facing, skills he’s acquired over the years. So, obviously, these “two heads of state” hate each other.
But when they are ambushed together and find themselves alone without any protection, they must put aside their differences to work together and try to survive the “worst security breach in history.” Now stuck in a hostile foreign country, the Prime Minister and President must rely on each other to get to a location free from people trying to kill them.
Priyanka Chopra (Amazon’s Citadel, TV’s Quantico) costars as Noel Bisset, a lethal MI6 agent tasked with locating the Prime Minister and the President and transporting them to a secured location for extraction.
Jack Quaid (Amazon’s The Boys, Novocaine, Companion) also appears as a CIA field agent who tries to help out but reminds them that there’s no playbook for something like this. It’s only them against a constant stream of ruthless killers out to get them, and no backup is coming. The only playbook is to survive at all costs and don't stop until they make it to the other side.
Heads of State is written by Josh Appelbaum & André Nemec (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows) and Harrison Query, from a story by Query.
The film also co-stars Paddy Considine, Stephen Root, and Carla Gugino.
If you're looking to laugh as well as be thrilled by elaborate fight scenes and gunbattles, you might want to mark this down on your calendar. Coming this summer, Heads of State will be blasting its way onto Prime Video starting on July 2nd. Just in time to make your Fourth of July plans even more explosive!
Official Synopsis:
In the action-comedy Heads of State, the UK Prime Minister Sam Clarke (Idris Elba) and U.S. President Will Derringer (John Cena) have a not-so-friendly and very public rivalry that jeopardizes their countries’ “special relationship.” But when they become the targets of a powerful and ruthless foreign adversary—who proves more than a match for the two leaders’ security forces—they are begrudgingly forced to rely on the only two people they can trust: each other. Ultimately allied with the brilliant MI6 agent Noel Bisset (Priyanka Chopra Jonas), they must go on the run and find a way to work together long enough to thwart a global conspiracy that threatens the entire free world.
