Amazon's 'G20' Movie Is A Girlboss Power Fantasy In The Worst Way

The cringe is strong in this one.

Modern cinema suffers from many problems, but one of these is a lack of any sort of nuance. And perhaps nuance isn’t what anyone is looking for in a big action flick like Amazon’s upcoming G20 film, but it’s the small details that make even action movies great.

G20 is basically Air Force One on steroids, at least if the trailer is any indication. The film is basically a power fantasy, as so many action movies are, but this one is a girlboss power fantasy in the cringiest way possible.

The film takes place at the G20 summit in Cape Town, South Africa, which is taken over by terrorists who plan to use deepfake / AI technology to use the world leaders’ voices and likenesses in order to . . . uh, take over the world’s financial markets or something. The villain, Rutledge, is played by The Boys star, Antony Starr. It’s hard to see him in anything without thinking of his role as Homelander now. Hopefully he’s not forever typecast as a villain.

Viola Davis stars as President Danielle Sutton. Not only is she a black woman, she’s also super tough, and when things go bad, it’s down to her to protect her family and fellow world leaders. This checks all the boxes, obviously, when it comes not only to diversity, villains tailored to the “modern audience” and so forth, but also American triumphalism, anti-Trumpian idealism, fear of AI technology, etc etc. etc. ad nauseum. Before I say more, here’s the trailer:

So back to the question of nuance. The problem here isn’t that president Sutton is a woman or that she’s black, it’s that she’s a middle-aged woman who is apparently fully capable of taking down massive, hulking terrorist brutes with relative ease. Two at a time. Twice her size and muscle mass, with bigger guns. She’s just that much of a badass. I realize also that Davis has played action roles before—The Woman King, for instance—and she’s a perfectly fine choice for a US president. But watching her take out these bad guys is goofy as hell. It doesn’t come across as badass, it comes across as deeply silly. When she blocks the big dude and then forcefully presses his face into the stove I almost laughed out loud.

This brings me back to Air Force One. Harrison Ford was five years younger than Davis is now when he played president James Marshall. In that film, Air Force One is taken over by terrorists and Marshall has to save the day. But he rarely does this through brute strength. Marshall uses stealth to covertly overpower the bad guys. He uses his wits to trick them. In other words, while he’s still an action hero (Marshall was a Vietnam vet and Medal of Honor recipient) the audience doesn’t have to suspend their disbelief about a 54-year-old dude taking on a terrorist cell all by himself. A little bit of realism goes a long way.

Or take Alien if you want an example of a female-led action movie (though that’s horror-space-thriller also). I think everyone can agree that Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) is one of the greatest female action heroes of all time, but while she certainly had her badass moments, she also had to use her wits to even just barely survive. Weaver wasn’t even 30 yet. And even a 30-year-old Weaver would look a bit silly winning melee fights against the G20 bad guys.

All this appears to be tossed aside for G20, because in modern movies designed for the “modern audience” we treat tough female actors as though they were essentially just men, though more defensive than men, always out to prove just how tough they are instead of just . . . being tough. You see, Sutton is too tough to wear high-heels and good thing, too, though this also means we won’t get to see her stab a terrorist in the eye with a high-heel shoe.

Even the classic action movie, Die Hard, featuring a much younger Bruce Willis, has plenty of moments where John McClane has to outwit his opponents or run and hide from them, and it’s only by the skin of his teeth that he succeeds.

Beyond the ludicrousness of the film’s premise, it just looks cheap and lazy. Notice the fire extinguisher around the 55 second mark and the flagrant use of cheap CGI instead of practical effects. Details matter.

This movie would be a lot more appealing if it borrowed more of what made Air Force One work so well—not merely the same basic premise. I could believe that Sutton is tough enough and smart enough to survive, to outwit her opponents, to use her leadership skills to make use of her allies. As it stands, the whole thing feels like it’s trying way, way too hard. I expect it will be hilariously entertaining for all the wrong reasons. We’ll know for sure when the movie drops on Amazon Prime Video on April 10th.