“State executives,” Now that flows on Prime Video, is an insanely entertaining summer movie blockbuster that you can watch from your living room. It plays John Cena, as a former action hero turned president in the United States, and Idris Elba, as a lost prime minister, who is forced to merge and go on an adventure, even if they don’t like each other much.
The movie Harts back to the narrow, studio-produced action comedies in the 1980s and 1990s and delivers some hard charging sets in a PG-13-frame that the whole family can enjoy. (It also has a killer that supports the role that includes Jack Quaid, Priyanka Chopra, Stephen Root, Carla Gugino and a sloping Paddy Consistin as the big bad.) It’s a hoot. And proof that you do not have to leave your house for one of the best summer films of the year.
Much of what makes “heads of state” so funny is the direction from Ilya Naishuller, who previously did “Hardcore Henry” and “None.” He knows how to stage sets that are muscular and exciting, while he never drives things too far. A good example of Naishuller’s strategy is a sequence, early, where Cena and Elba have to flee an air force one that has been attacked.
When Naishuller came to the project, he adjusted it in a significant way – he wondered if the film could be an action comedy instead of an action thriller. Cena went from being a combat-hardened ex-soldiers to a stated silly former action movie star. (Naishuller said he thinks of the film as “plan, train and cars” with weapons.) And this tweak, away from a simple action movie, helped to inform the Air Force One sequence in particular.
“The whole point of it was, the guys are not heroic in this sequence. They are led. So they behave as if I would behave if I was on that plane – I would be terrified,” said Naishuller. The only heroic things they do are control the people who are on the plane and ask if they can double on the parachutes to see if they can save more people. “Everything else, there is pure horror in their eyes, which I think is just much more fun than having two guys who are like” we have this. “They come there but they start the hero’s journey as people who are not really capable of being the protectors you can expect.”
Naishuller said that he storyboards things religiously and it took him five months that storyboards everything for “heads of state.” However, with the same people, it took him one and a half months to make storyboards for “none.” The Air Force One sequence was on board 10 times-there were versions that more involved fighter aircraft located next to the plane and a version where a chef character competes Elba and Cena character through the plane. But naish luller must be ruthless. He was up to the wall, in terms of story and time, and knew he just had to continue with it.
“I thought, Look, we’ll come to the 30th minute of the movie and then we have to meet our act two. And I feel that it doesn’t matter if you have an incredible 12-minute sequence, you want to get to what the movie is about, and it’s the two guys alone without getting support that goes through enemy territory, “said Naishuller.” That is why I continued to cut away. “
Naishuller received help in the sequence with some rather dazzling visual effects, including a fully computer -generated air force one and shot that seems to be attached to missiles that damage to the plane. “Of course we can’t get up there and shoot the matter for real. But how would we shoot it if we could?” Said naishuller. .
One thing cut from the sequence was a moment with a security pod being thrown out of Air Force One. This has been a legend as long as Air Force One has flew and been dramatized in films that extend from John Carpenter’s “Escape from New York” to Harrison Ford in “Air Force One.” “It felt like we are going unnecessary too big. I mean, the whole sequence would be big, but I was like Why do we have to go so big? It is the first action scene with our two guys. I don’t want it to be too fantastic as much as I love the shots, ”explained Naishuller.
And while he was not allowed to use the pod-that is still unconfirmed, he-bodied from real life for a sequence later in the film, when Cena uses a blood reserve in the president’s limousine to prevent any badies. Naishuller found a cross -section of Barack Obama’s limousine, which showed that there was a blood reserve. “It’s such an obvious smart idea – about the president’s pain there, you don’t have to come to a hospital. You connect him and you will at least be able to keep him alive until the real rescue services emerge.” That was the symbol of something that was both over-the-top and “something grounded,” according to Naishuller. “Yes, it will be stupid. But it was a walk that tone,” he said. And what a tone it is.
“State managers” are flowing on Prime Video now.
