G20 - Mark Reviews Movies

G20, Amazon MGM Studios

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Review by Mark Dujsik | April 10, 2025

One wants to laugh at the absurdity of G20, in which a character who's essentially a "crypto bro" with a private army overtakes the eponymous international summit. We want to chuckle at the notion of the movie's action-hero protagonist, the recently elected President of the United States, who just happens to be a combat veteran and still trains every morning on the White House lawn—presumably, just in case any situation like this one might arise. Instead, you almost have to sigh, as this movie starts by taking itself completely seriously and continues to do so—even as it becomes more ridiculous and formulaic.

The filmmakers don't even take it seriously that well. Despite the severity of the setup—in which the leaders of several countries are held hostage—and the assorted ideas about mass disinformation and economic frustration that it presents, the screenplay, written by a quartet of people (Caitlin Parrish, Erica Weiss, and fraternal writers Logan and Noah Miller), is surprisingly limited in its ambition. Once the requisite back story and backdrop are in place, the movie becomes just yet another one-person-army against a highly skilled, highly motivated crew of villains in a single location.

That the location is a remote resort near Cape Town, South Africa, at least suggests that there might be some room in which the filmmakers can work, as the cat-and-mouse game unfolds and escalates towards action. Instead, we get scene after scene of characters holing up in some room or other space, basically waiting for the bad guy to show up and talking about how bad things are while they wait for the next step of continuing that routine.

There's so much more potential here. Take our protagonist President Danielle Sutton, who won the election on her record as a vet of the Iraq War and is played by Viola Davis. Davis is certainly the correct choice for this character as the movie plays the plot, since she brings a genuine sense of no-nonsense gravitas to the role, but maybe, that approach isn't the right one for this kind of material in the first place.

It definitely doesn't treat Danielle, who is presumably the first woman to be elected to the presidency, with as much thought or understanding as Davis attempts to bring to the role. We've seen what has happened when women campaign for President in the real world, and just as this story seems to be set in an alternate present day, it also appears to exist in an alternate reality where gender and race only vaguely fit into the realm of political vitriol and double standards.

This is only worth mentioning, of course, because of the tone director Patricia Riggen establishes from the beginning and throughout the story, which sets up some plan Danielle has to revamp currencies worldwide or something like that. She's going to the Group of 20 summit to convince other world leaders that her proposal could help every economy and everyone's personal finances. Soon enough, though, the meeting is hijacked by Rutledge (Anthony Starr), who wants to create deepfakes of world leaders conspiring to control people in order to push cryptocurrency—and, more importantly, fatten his personal crypto wallet.

It's a neat and relevant gimmick for a villain, whom Starr plays with genuine malice, but it's as irrelevant as every other bit of political and economic background here. The point is for Danielle, accompanied by her personal Secret Service agent Manny (Ramón Rodríguez) and a few other summit VIPs, to escape the initial attack, go into hiding, and come up with a plan to stop the terrorists and free the hostages. Meanwhile, First Gentleman Derek (Anthony Anderson) and the couple's two teenaged kids—Serena (Marsai Martin), who's not coincidentally revealed to be a tech whiz within the first few minutes, and Demetrius (Christopher Farrar)—do the same business, only in a different part of the resort.

The whole process is more repetitive than anything else, as the same strategic discussions keep happening over and over, only in different locations within the building. The stakes pretty much remain the same throughout, as Rutledge threatens and occasionally assassinates some world leaders, Danielle is torn between protecting herself as the President and wanting to defend her own family, and random thugs appear to be dispatched in uninspired action sequences. A lot of them are dimly lit and/or plainly staged, especially when Danielle picks up a rifle and just turns to pick off bad guys, who helpfully enter the space in the style of a shooting gallery.

This might have been fun as an over-the-top actioner with real-world connections and concerns. Instead, the dull and unimaginative G20 collapses under the weight of its own self-seriousness.

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