'G20': YOU EITHER WANT TO WATCH PRESIDENT VIOLA DAVIS BEAT UP MEDIOCRE WHITE DUDES OR YOU DON'T

Viola Davis is one of the most accomplished actors of her generation. Keeping it real, she’s one of the most accomplished actors of any generation. She's respected, beloved, and she’s given her heart and soul to some truly powerful dramas—Fences, Ma Rainy's Black Bottom, The Woman King—that highlight the fearlessness, power, and inner strength of the Black woman. But sometimes she wants to show a little outer strength too. And if that means beating the crap out of cryptobros, so be it. Every great actor should get their own Die Hard knockoff at least once in their career. G20 is Viola Davis's.

*SPOILERS FOR G20 FROM THIS POINT*

We're Gonna Need Some More FBI Guys, I Guess. 

Amazon Prime's G20 opens with President Danielle Sutton (Davis)—yes, we live in a beautiful world where the United States actually elects a Black woman as President—and the First Gentleman (an excellently cast Anthony Anderson) admonishing their computer whiz, 18 year old daughter, Serena, whose mad hacking skillz are just mad enough to outwit the Secret Service, leading her to appear in a politically embarrassing video at a Georgetown bar.

So, it’s decided that Serena (played by Marsai Martin, reuniting with her Black-ish on-screen dad) and her younger, dorkier (mostly useless) brother (played by Christopher Farrar) will fly to the G20 Summit in Cape Town with their parents, where they will most assuredly stay in their hotel room and out of trouble, as kids do.

Leaving her kids and the red heels suggested by her fabulous personal stylist behind (that'll become important), President Sutton heads to the banquet in a bold, First Gentleman approved, red dress. It's all smiles, champaign, niceties, and apolitical small talk until a group of crypto terrorists—led by disgruntled bitcoin nut, Rutledge (played by The Boys' Antony Starr)—infiltrate the ultra-fancy soirée and take a bunch of world leaders hostage (after killing some, just for good measure). But it's not just the political elite in peril. Danielle’s kids and husband are endangered, too. And she’s equally as loyal to her family as she is her country. In a crisis, how can she possibly prioritize?

Now I Know What a TV Dinner Feels Like.

The script is clearly modeled on movies like Air Force One and White House Down (and, of course, Die Hard) right down to the trailer-capping shot of Davis dangling from a helicopter.

Written by Caitlin Parrish, Erica Weiss, and Logan Miller, most of the dialogue is just as hammy as you'd expect from this kind of movie. When one character complains about running around the G20 compound in high heels (I told you the shoes were important), Danielle explains that she “vetoed that idea” and shows off the bright red running shoes, hidden under her long silk red gown.

But it's not without it's moments. When Danielle scolds Serena for sneaking out, she asks her daughter, “You know I needed to work twice as hard to get here. Why are you making it harder?” And even if you're a non-President, non war veteran, Black woman watching, you know exactly what she means, and exactly where she’s coming from.

Even before the action kicks in (and boy, does it kick in) EGOT winner Viola Davis finds texture and emotion in the smallest of scenes. Davis is just so damn good at playing a woman forced to make urgent life-and-death decisions. Give her a lofty speech—she gets several here—and she’s right at home, lending Shakespearean-level gravitas to every phrase. The set of her jaw during a tense family dinner sequence, the way she prepares to face a crowd, even the second she pauses in the middle of a busy ballroom to wonder about the probability of success of her much-heralded Together Plan—a plan to make South Africa's currency digital..or something. Davis makes every scene count. And that’s before she shoves a baddie’s face into a hot grill.

Though nearly half the movie’s elapses before the President picks up a weapon, there’s no going back once she’s armed. Here, President Sutton seems to be taking Teddy Roosevelt’s advice, “Speak softly and carry a big stick,” as she machine-guns her way through the halls of a grand estate.

You've got to give credit to Viola Davis for learning how to wield such equipment, since she comes off looking every bit as convincing as any one of the Expendables: dropping half a dozen henchmen in quick succession as she pivots in the dark. The movie doesn’t need to be realistic or even remotely plausible, since—let's be honest—G20 is dumbing down an already brain-dead genre. But that’s the joy of casting such a star in this kind of role.

Of course, President Sutton's nothing without her allies—namely her charming, protective right-hand special agent Manny (Will Trent's Ramón Rodríguez), the Korean prime minister’s wife, who looks like a dignified granny (played by MeeWha Alana Lee), the whiny, highly annoying British Prime Minister (played to annoying perfection by Douglas Hodge), the head of the IMF, an intimidating powerhouse in a velvet pantsuit (played Sabrina Impacciatore), and a bevy of bazooka wielding, Krav Maga practicing kitchen staff members who apparently moonlight as Wakandan warriors in their off time—who each play a role in filling out this incredibly unrealistic world.

Realism aside, there’s nothing but sheer pleasure to be had in watching Davis's version of a President rip off the bottom half of her elegant scarlet G20 reception gown (in a perfect Project Runway grade tear), to make running, climbing, and dangling precariously that much easier.

If This Is Their Idea of Christmas, I Gotta Be Here for New Year's.

G20 has two major points in its favor right out of the gate: a super-fun premise for an action film (what if money-mad mercenaries seized 20 of the most powerful leaders of the world and demanded some really insane yet mostly unintelligible shit?) and Viola Davis, an actor so good and so classy that it never feels like she’s punching below her weight class. Davis (who also produced) brings charisma to every role, and so while she’s thrilling to watch in the non-action moments afforded to her President Danielle Sutton, there's something special about seeing her, oh, bring a frying pan to a gun fight. And win. She can have it all!

The final post credits shot of the ripped red dress framed and hanging in a parlor while the First Family stares lovingly up at it pretty much says it all. G20 is a wish-fulfilment fantasy film where nothing is meant to be taken seriously—the only aim is to have a good time.

4.5/5 ★: Viola Davis understood the assignment.