Viola Davis is one of the most successful actors in her generation. Come to think about it, she is one of the most successful actors in some generation. Respected, loved, she has given her heart and soul to powerful drama that enriches the human spirit. But sometimes she also wants to beat the shit of villains, and gosh dangled it, good for her. Every great actor should get their own “die hard” knockoff at least once. I would pay good money to see Glenn close the kicked shit from mercenar on a zeppelin, right?
“G20” is not at a distance as powerful, exciting or groundbreaking as “The Woman King”, but it is a high order. It plays Viola Davis as President Danielle Sutton, a war hero to introduce a new plan at the international G20 top meeting to save poor people all over the world through something something Cryptocurrency. It is not entirely clear and it does not matter. She is the president, she wants to help people, the movie has strange and contradictory attitudes about Cryptocurrency – that’s all you need to know about it.
President Sutton has a loving spouse named Derek (Anthony Anderson), a cool rebel hacker daughter named Serena (Marsai Martin, “Black-ish”) and a son whom I am pretty sure “I’m in the movie too” (Christopher’s farrs, “Kindred”), because the script does not give him much. She also has a Hillary Clinton-Esque Treasury Secretary (Elizabeth Marvel) and a Secret Service agent who serves as her best friend and triples as her combat instructor (Ramón Rodríguez, “Will Trent”).
They all travel to South Africa for the G20 summit, and that is when the bad guys do their bad guy, take over the joint and keep all the world leaders hostage. President Sutton flees with his bodyguard and a handful of other participants and continues to kick their butter six ways from Sunday. At the same time, Derek is trying to sneak his children in safety. And since “Die Hard” did, we will soon learn that the villains – led by Antony Star (“The Boys”), whose eyes continue to plunder as if he is tracking a mosquito – is actually just in this for the money. Their system that will crash the world’s economy while making billions, you guessed it, Cryptocurrency.
Cryptocurrency has a lot to answer, but one of its minor sins is to make characters in movies sound accidentally funny. Every time someone in the “G20” talks about blockchains or crypto wallets or claims, crypto is the best economic system in the world, sounds like young children who make words in their garden while playing believes. It doesn’t sound like these actors know what they are talking about, or if they do, it doesn’t sound like they have any idea how to make it sound like it’s not a scam. Which, to be fair, yes, good points, but I’m not sure it is the tone “G20” goes for.
Again, maybe it is. “G20” is everywhere, all the time. President Sutton’s family drama is treated with all the whimsical family resistance in an original film from Disney Channel, and then people are brutally murdered. The British Prime Minister (Douglas Hodge, “We Live In Time”) spends half the movie other guessing President Sutton, makes a complete comic relief of himself and proves to the audience that his opinion does not matter. Then one of the most emotional scenes in the film is about Sutton who serves its approval, as if it is suddenly assumed to mean something. What are we doing here, movie? What do we even do?
“G20” is a strangely cheap production, like a direct-to-video B movie that was accidentally completed with an A+ herd. The action is not very convincing, with Viola Davis swirls around in a vacuum and shoots outside the camera, while villains fall into a confusing swirl of vague coverage. There is a car chase with “The Beast”, the president’s limo with armor plating and weapons to save, which looks like it cost some real money, but it competes with the stage from the “White house down” where the beast spun monks on the White House’s lawn while the president shot the Rocket launches out through the window while the villain shot back to him. “G20” just can’t compete with that.
But we do not go to “die hard” knockoffs for their ingenuity. We go to see “die hard” again with some minor differences. The action and supporting characters in “G20” is nothing to write home, but Viola Davis deserves all fan post. She gives this otherwise mediocre film everything she has, and she has Gravitas and humanity and a vicious place. It is impossible not to root to President Viola Davis when she takes down incompetent, mediocre white guys who want to crash the world economy. She stares down this generic production and goes away with another victory under the belt. When she fights, she wins.
“G20” premieres at Prime -Video on April 10.
