Director: Patricia Riggen
Writers: Caitlin Parrish & Erica Weiss and Logan Miller & Noah Miller
Starring: Viola Davis, Anthony Anderson, Marsai Martin, Ramón Rodríguez, Douglas Hodge, Elizabeth Marvel, Sabrina Impacciatore, Christopher Farrar, Antony Starr
Stars : 2.5 
 
In G20, Viola Davis stars as President Danielle Sutton, a wartime hero turned reluctant action star, thrust into the center of a hostage crisis at an international summit. It’s a setup that knowingly echoes Air Force One, Olympus Has Fallen, and the pantheon of political-action thrillers where heads of state become unexpected saviors. But in this post-truth, post-glory era of entertainment, G20 doesn’t so much reinvent the formula as it runs it through a streaming-era filter—glossy, loud, and oddly hollow.
 
Directed by Patricia Riggen, G20 opens with promise. A global conference in Cape Town turns violent as a mercenary-led siege unfolds, and President Sutton—accompanied by her bickering First Family—is forced into survival mode. There’s a vest, a pistol, some bruising hand-to-hand combat, and the inevitable speech about courage. In lesser hands, this setup would be a disaster. But Viola Davis, even when the material barely supports her, never phones it in. She smolders with purpose, balancing physical tenacity with presidential steel, and gives her character a core of earned emotional depth. If G20 has a heartbeat, it’s hers.
 
And yet, the movie seems confused about its own pulse. It flirts with satire but won’t commit. It drops hints of socio-political commentary—deepfake disinformation, crypto-funded chaos, vague nods to systemic inequality—but treats them like window dressing. What could’ve been a sharp, timely thriller ends up chasing cliché with a straight face. The villain, played with twitchy menace by Antony Starr, is a cardboard cutout from the International Terrorist Starter Pack, and his motivations are so muddled they collapse under even basic scrutiny.
 
The action is kinetic but inconsistent. A few standout beats—a hallway fight lit by flickering chandeliers, a cheeky “Let’s dance, Madame President” one-liner before a brawl—remind you that Riggen has an eye for theatrical flair. But for every inspired moment, there are clunky cuts, unmotivated camera moves, and a lack of spatial clarity. It’s action choreography by algorithm—never quite incoherent, but rarely exhilarating.
 
There’s also a nagging sense that G20 wants to be more iconic than it is. Scenes linger just long enough to imply they were imagined as GIFs and trailer fodder. Davis slipping on red sneakers beneath a torn presidential gown? That’s a marketing pitch, not a plot beat. Teen daughter turned ace hacker? Check. Comic-relief foreign leaders? Check. A snipey press corps and noble Secret Service agent with a hidden crush? Check and check. Every trope is present, but none are reinvented.
 
What’s more interesting—if accidental—is what G20 reveals about the state of the action genre in the streaming age. This isn’t a blockbuster so much as the memory of one, stitched together with glossy production and familiar faces, meant to be half-watched on a Thursday night. It gestures toward gravitas while winking at its own absurdity, but never lands fully in camp or sincerity. It doesn’t challenge or thrill; it mimics.
 
Still, Davis is a force. Even in a film this formulaic, she commands every frame. There’s dignity in her performance, even as the plot flounders around her. If Widows and The Woman King allowed her to redefine what an action heroine could be, G20 is content to simply let her play dress-up in the genre’s old clothes. She elevates every line, every glance, every standoff—but she can’t rescue the film from its own middling ambitions.
 
G20 is less a presidential thriller than a high-budget cosplay of one. Viola Davis brings credibility and commitment to a movie that only occasionally deserves her. For fans of throwback action or Davis completists, it might scratch an itch. For everyone else, it’s a reminder that even the strongest actors can only do so much when the story is running on fumes.