Viola Davis is an EGOT. She’s one of only 20 people in history — fewer, when you consider persons of colour — to have won at least one Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony. She’s done August Wilson on the stage and screen; she went to Juilliard, like Jessica Chastain and Adam Driver. For her to star in a movie like G20 — think Air Force One, but worse — isn’t unlike Javed Akhtar waking up one morning, slipping into a crisp kurta, and deciding to script one of KRK’s rant videos. Released on Prime Video, G20 is a glorified bargain bin movie — the kind of movie for which Amazon should be paying you, and not the other way around.
Davis plays POTUS Danielle Sutton, an Iraq War veteran who became famous after being photographed carrying a baby out of a bombed building. The movie doesn’t show us what happened next, but you could easily imagine Danielle being deified in the press, buying into her own myth, and deciding to run for president. America loves its celebrities, and electing Danielle into office is exactly what you’d expect from the folks who’ve voted Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump into power. We first meet Danielle as she’s disciplining her teenage daughter for giving the secret service the slip, and partying with her friends at a local bar.
As punishment, she decrees that both her children will accompany her and their father, played by Anthony Anderson, to the G20 summit in South Africa. Danielle is determined to get world leaders to support her radical plans to tackle world hunger. She already knows that the British Prime Minister might be a tough nut to crack, but little does she know that they’ll be forced to cooperate — is this movie a political allegory? — in the aftermath of what happens next. Moments into the summit, a group of masked men barges in and takes everyone hostage. The world’s most powerful individuals are left cowering for their lives. The leader of the mercenary squad, a man named Rutledge, says that he has had it with politicians stealing the public’s money, and announces a plan to get people to abandon traditional currency and buy crypto instead.
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Played by Anthony Starr off The Boys, Rutledge isn’t as noble as his masterplan might make him seem. It’s ultimate riches that he’s after, not social equality. After a brief shootout, Danielle slips away to safety with her personal bodyguard, and together, they decide to find their way towards the basement. This is where her car is parked; it’s their only ticket out of this mess. As Danielle and her little troupe rushes towards the basement, Rutledge releases doctored videos of the world leaders urging their people to put all their stock in crypto-currency. He also manages to get his hands on her husband and kids, and shoves them into the room with all the other hostages. Danielle has no choice but to retrace her steps and rescue her family. G20 tries to be topical, weaving elements like artificial intelligence and the economic crisis into its harebrained plot. But in its heart of hearts, it’s a Sunny Deol movie. Let’s not kid ourselves.
A few years ago — actually, it’s been over a decade — the box office saw a clash between Olympus Has Fallen and White House Down, two movies with near-identical set-ups. One starred Jamie Foxx as the president, while the other featured Aaron Eckhart. Both films seem extremely dated now; one of them had North Koreans as the villains. But G20 seems to have gone to the Top Gun: Maverick school for political commentary, in that it doesn’t stick its neck out and give its villains an overt identity. Rutledge is Australian, but his nationality has nothing to do with his ideology. His henchmen sound like they’re South African, but this could simply mean that he’s a cheapskate. Why fly folks in when local talent is available? The one thing that the villains have in common, however, is that they’re all white. The heroes, on the other hand, are all persons of colour.
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Because G20 is so forgettable, you might find your mind drifting during its many dingily shot action sequences. It’s one thing to laugh at such movies, but they make you wonder if something this harmless would even be allowed in India. Would the PMO object to the sight of our elected leader is brandishing an assault rifle and getting into scuffles with random villains? On that note, the Indian PM is featured in G20, but he’s restricted to a background presence. It’s difficult to recall if he escapes without harm, to be honest. So much for announcing to the world that we’re a force to be reckoned with. We couldn’t secure representation in a disposable Prime Video movie. Perhaps they should’ve set it inside the Bharat Mandapam? But then they’d take offence at the suggestion that such a security breach could happen here. Ah, well.
G20
Director – Patricia Riggen
Cast – Viola Davis, Anthony Starr, Anthony Anderson, Ramón Rodríguez, Douglas Hodge
Rating – 2/5
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