Viola Davis turns into an action star in G20, as Hollywood grapples with Bitcoin and cryptocurrency. Here’s our review.
I am the worst possible reviewer for a film like G20. I look at it, and fully appreciate that in the 1990s the script would have gone to Nicolas Cage. In the 2000s, to The Statham, and by the late 2010s, it’s Gerard Butler’s. I’d watch each version of those, obviously.
In 2025, G20 accepts the trade-off that Viola Davis (deservedly) gets the lead role, but it’ll be bypassing cinemas and instead be a heavily-backed streaming release instead. It’s not the ideal quid pro quo, but still: G20 is thoroughly enjoyable bollocks. The casting of Viola Davis is, of course, inspired. She could kill Liam Neeson in the Taken films with a mild glance, and I’d recommend exploring spin-off films where she takes down traditional action stars.
Back to this feature, then. Directed by Patricia Riggen, on the surface it’s a film about the G20 summit – taking place in South Africa for the purposes of this film (and for taking advantage of filming tax credits) – which is basically hijacked by nasty people. Davis, as the President of the US, is attending with her husband and kids. When the security services fail to protect the attendees, in she steps. Ass is kicked, fun is had.
Davis is absolutely the standout, too. She’s awoken at the start of the film for a conversation about – yes! – a crypto wallet (coming to that imminently), while also having to track down an offspring who’s escaped from the White House. Then we see her take a self defence class, while getting wrapped up in a plan to solve world hunger that seems to involve Bitcoin.
It’s an opening that moves fast, seemingly with a self-awareness that if you want people at home to look up from playing Candy Crush, you’ve got to get them early. G20 tries, although splutters for a while.
But for me, it’s when Viola and her family arrive in Cape Town for the G20 summit that the fun sparks.
There’s a special place in my heart for Hollywood action movies that tie themselves up in knots over explaining modern technology. In 1996’s Mission: Impossible, it seems quite quaint that there was so much fuss over a solitary floppy disk. Then, the USB flash drive came along, a get out of jail plot device that screenwriters grabbed with some enthusiasm.
G20, though, sets itself higher. It goes for RFID technology and – yes! – a cryptocurrency wallet. There’s a glorious bit in the otherwise forgettable Speed II: Cruise Control where Willem Dafoe’s villain requires a specific piece of technology for plot reasons. Rather than properly explain it, when the camera zooms in on said tech, it’s instead got a sod-off label on it, telling you exactly what it is. It made me guffaw then, it makes me guffaw now.
G20 though goes one better. Wherever you stand on cryptocurrency, one of its tenets is that there’s security and privacy built into it. It’s all stored away as ones and zeroes, without the need to carry anything physical around. Screw that, says G20, as instead we get a black box with a live ticking computerised counter – I’ll say again, a live ticking computerised counter – as to the value of its contents. Honestly, get this shit in my veins. A walking advertisement for the squillions of dollars contained within.
Plus! We get bonus AI, as the plot demands we have deepfake versions of some world leaders, spouting nonsense that news networks happily report verbatim as fact.
Then! Then! G20 brings in another one of my favourite ingredients: the bumbling Brit.
Far be it for me to suggest the role of the British Prime Minister here, played superbly by Douglas Hodge, was based on anyone. But the out of his depth buffoon we get here, who shows every sign of fathering too many to accurately count numbers of children, and hosting work events masquerading as office parties, is something else.
I gave up writing all this down after a bit, and instead sat watching the film with a big, shit-eating grin on my face. The President being briefed about how she’s safe, and how the hotel she’s stopping in has top notch security? Got it, she’s screwed. On the nose dialogue such as “I’ve got to go and save the world”? Check, it’s ‘get off my plane’ for a new generation. A reminder that the film is fiction, because one of the world leaders look like Liz Truss? Splendid.
Much of G20, still, is conventional stuff that plays out competently on the screen. But there are surprising, unexpected sparks too. I don’t want to spoil things, so the furthest I’ll go is in suggesting it has a lot of fun with characters you don’t necessarily expect it to have fun with. It also has the enviable safety net of, when it slows down, being able to cut to Viola Davis in a bright red dress, shooting people down with either a) a Paddington hard stare or b) violence. Sometimes, c) both.
Sadly, the core missing ingredient is a particularly memorable villain, to go toe to toe with Viola. Jeopardy is limited, as you just look at the line up and figure whoever’s going up against her has no chance. Furthermore, the script – by Logan Miller, Noah Miller, Caitlin Parrish and Erica Weiss – goes necessarily plotty by the end, and I just thought it let the air out of the tyres a little.
Still, fully accepting that at heart, G20 is a pretty run of the mill action film at its foundation, I thoroughly enjoyed myself. There’s enough individuality to it to lift it above much on a streaming service carousel. And also, I haven’t laughed at the use of technology in a film so much since the 1990s.
G21 next, please. Casting suggestions welcomed.
—
Thank you for visiting! If you’d like to support our attempts to make a non-clickbaity movie website:
Follow Film Stories on Twitter here, and on Facebook here.
Buy our Film Stories and Film Junior print magazines here.
Become a Patron here.
