Heads of State: Way over the top

Heads of State (2025) • View trailer

Three stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, and quite generously, despite strong action violence and profanity

Available via: Amazon Prime

By Derrick Bang 

This relentlessly silly movie will require a lot of patience, even from undemanding viewers inclined to be forgiving.

 

When Air Force One is blown out of the sky during a coordinated drone attack, U.S.
President Will Derringer (John Cena, left) and UK Prime Minister Sam Clarke
(Idris Elba) wonder if the next few minutes will be their last...

It’s basically a live-action cartoon, and the dog-nuts script — by Harrison Query, Josh Appelbaum and André Nemec — has plot holes large enough to swallow Air Force One. I frequently was reminded of Jackie Chan’s goofiest martial arts comedies, and the degree to which this flick succeeds, does so for the same reason: sheer star power.

Idris Elba and John Cena are a lot of fun together, and appear to have a great time in the midst of all the chaos ... so we do, as well. 

 

To a point.

 

Will Derringer (Cena) is the gung-ho President of the United States: a political neophyte after a successful career as an action movie star. Imagine Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Governator as the President: Derringer constantly employs Cena’s wide smile as if he’s greeting folks on the Hollywood red carpet, as opposed to anything resembling a statesman.

 

Sam Clarke (Elba) is Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, a relentlessly serious man who grieves over the state of the world, and quietly despairs over his inability to make things better. He’s refined, well-educated and loathes Derringer’s glib, glad-handed egocentricity; Derringer, in turn, never has forgiven Clarke for a deliberate slight during the U.S. presidential campaign.

 

But we don’t meet them immediately. Director Ilya Naisheller opens with a prologue set amid Spain’s annual Tomatina, a tomato-throwing festival that takes place in the town of Buñol, and is famed as the world’s largest food fight. Senior MI6 agent Noel Bisset (Priyanka Chopra Jonas) leads a surveillance team that hopes to capture notorious terrorist Viktor Gradov (Paddy Considine), who has been spotted in the town square.

 

Alas, it turns out to be a trap; Bisset and her entire team are ambushed by thugs led by Viktor’s ruthless pet assassins, Sasha and Olga (Alexander Kuznetsov and Katrina Durden, both impressively nasty).

 

This sequence is typical of the frequent, brutal violence that often works against the story’s humor, and also stretches the generous PG-13 rating.

 

Much as Clarke and Derringer dislike each other, they’re forced to make a public show of togetherness and mutual respect — displaying the long-standing “special relationship” between the U.S. and UK — while attending a NATO meeting in Italy. It’s a crucial gathering, because membership is wavering, in the face of an increasingly hostile and unpredictable world.

The Matrix Resurrections: It's déjà vu all over again

The Matrix Resurrections (2021) • View trailer

Two stars (out of five). Rated R, for violence and profanity

Available via: Movie theaters and HBO Max (until January 21)

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.31.21

Charles M. Schulz sagely observed that a cartoonist is “someone who has to draw the same thing day after day, without repeating himself.”

 

Lana Wachowski, on the other hand, is a writer/director who makes the same movie time after time, while repeating everything.

 

Although not entirely convinced, Thomas (Keanu Reeves) instinctively senses that much
of what Bugs (Jessica Henwick) says is true ... and that his supposed life on Earth
isn't actually what he thinks.

Great gig if you can get it, I guess.

But the utter absence of originality in this fourth Matrix installment is both tedious and disheartening: in its own way, a contributor to the death of imagination. Wachowski — abetted by co-writers David Mitchell and Aleksandar Hemon — apparently can make the same movie ad infinitum, and fans don’t seem to mind.

 

What was novel and mind-blowingly audacious, back in 1999, has become familiar and boring.

 

A brief prologue introduces the feisty, blue-tressed Bugs (Jessica Henwick), a “white rabbit” on a covert mission in what clearly is a dangerous Matrix rabbit hole, seeking clues that will reveal more about “The One,” who sacrificed himself for humanity 60 years earlier.

 

Following that, we drop in on Thomas Anderson (Keanu Reeves), a wildly successful computer programmer who has made a fortune for himself, and his company, with a three-part immersive game called The Matrix Trilogy.

 

Given that Thomas — known in the “real” world as Neo — died nobly at the conclusion of 2003’s The Matrix Revolutions, his appearance here clearly indicates fresh bad behavior by the intelligent machines that control the Matrix. (As a quick recap, all of humanity unknowingly exists within a simulated reality of our familiar world, their physical bodies actually trapped within pods that suck their life force for energy.)

 

Thomas suffers from bad dreams, despite having shakily moved beyond a recent psychotic break that prompted a suicide attempt: a crisis expertly managed by his warmly sympathetic psychiatrist (Neil Patrick Harris). Worse yet, Thomas is confronted by his boss — Jonathan Groff, suitably smarmy and condescending, as Smith — and informed that they’re going to make a fresh sequel to the Matrix game trilogy: something Thomas swore he’d never do.

 

In a bit of cheeky meta, Smith explains that they have no choice; their corporate owners, Warner Bros., will do the game with or without them. 

The White Tiger: An impressive roar

The White Tiger (2021) • View trailer

Four stars. Rated R, for violence, sexual candor and considerable profanity

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.19.21 

There’s a trainload of rage in this thoroughly engaging film.

 

During their initial outing, Ashok (Rajkummar Rao) and his wife, Pinky Madam
(Priyanka Chopra), are surprised to discover that their new driver, Balram (Adarsh Gourav)
hasn't the faintest idea how to get where they're going.

Director/scripter Ramin Bahrani’s adaptation of Aravind Adiga’s award-winning 2008 novel has been described as a cross between Slumdog Millionaire and Parasite, and that’s reasonably accurate. But this film has the added benefit of a caustic sense of humor — darker than dark — and its protagonist’s sharply observed understanding of the way in which globalization has exacerbated the cruel divide between India’s upper and lower castes.

 

Our “hero,” Balram (Adarsh Gourav), is introduced in a position of prominence. He has become that which he always hoped to attain: an entrepreneur. This isn’t an easy achievement in his country, as he explains; an Indian entrepreneur must be “…straight and crooked, mocking and believing, sly and sincere, all at the same time.”

 

Balram narrates his saga by way of a letter written to Chinese Premier Web Jiabao, on the eve of his visit to India in 2010. “American is so yesterday,” Balram begins. “China and India are tomorrow.” (If American viewers respond to that introduction with unease, I’ve no doubt that was Bahrani’s intention.)

 

Balram (played, as an adolescent, by Harshit Mahawar) grows up in the poor village of Laxmangarh. He’s a bright, curious and perceptive child: that rarest of jungle creatures, a “white tiger,” symbol of freedom and individuality. But his intelligence opens no doors in a feudal hamlet under the thrall of a big city coal baron dubbed “The Stork” (Mahesh Manjrekar) and his thuggish elder son, “The Mongoose” (Vijay Maurya). They extract one-third of the already meager rupees the villagers earn.

 

Balram watches his father literally work himself to death, while the family elder — Granny Kusum (Kamlesh Gill) — berates the man, for not laboring harder.

 

This mind set — the adult Balram explains, in voiceover — is due to the most insidious of India’s “inventions”: the rooster coop, where caged birds silently watch their fellows being slaughtered, while calmly waiting their turn. This characterizes India’s “dark” under class: not merely trapped in a perpetual cycle of poverty and servitude, but trained over centuries to accept that it should be that way.

 

As the adult Balram further observes, “Election promises had taught me how important it is, not to be a poor man in a ‘free’ democracy.”

Baywatch: Hit the beach!

Baywatch (2017) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated R, for relentless profanity, crude sexual content and graphic nudity
By Derrick Bang

Well, color me surprised.

Far from the train wreck I anticipated, Baywatch is an unexpectedly entertaining take on the popular 1989-01 television series, which became must-see TV throughout the world — in syndication — after being dumped by NBC following a single season. (And boy, I’ll bet somebody’s head rolled after that mistake.)

As Mitch (Dwayne Johnson, left) and Matt (Zac Efron) grow increasingly suspicious of
the activity on a fancy yacht, they wonder if this might have something to do with the
nefarious development scheme that threatens their beloved Emerald Bay.

Mind you, we’re not talking classic cinema here. But director Seth Gordon and his half dozen credited writers keep their tongues firmly in cheek, and the result is an engaging blend of snarky comedy, rat-a-tat repartee, improbable action, bonding melodrama and — as was the case with the TV show — the ripped abs and barely zippered pulchritude of unapologetic beefcake and cheesecake.

As guilty pleasures come, this one’s shamelessly enticing.

Credit where due, Dwayne Johnson has a lot to do with this film’s success. It’s not merely a matter of his herculean feats of brawn, which we never tire of watching; he also knows how to toss a glib one-liner. Johnson has undeniable charisma and presence, and enough acting chops to navigate this sort of material. In a word, he’s fun ... and so is this film.

Johnson stars as veteran lifeguard Mitch Buchannon, top dog of the team at Emerald Bay: a well-recognized figure admired by all, who arrives early every morning to patrol his busy stretch of beach. He’s assisted by Stephanie Holden (Ilfenesh Hadera), his regimented, by-the-book second in command; and CJ Parker (Kelly Rohrbach, a former Sports Illustrated swimsuit model), a free-spirited lifeguard who keeps the zipper low on her halter top, and has the uncanny ability to jog in slow motion (one of the film’s many running gags).

The summer season has just begun, which means it’s time for tryouts for three open spots on the Baywatch team. The hopefuls include the bookish, hyper-competent Summer Quinn (Alexandra Daddario); and the awkward, slightly pudgy but stubbornly determined Ronnie (Jon Bass), an Emerald Bay local taking his third stab at joining this elite squad.

Much to Mitch’s displeasure, he’s also forced to consider former Olympian Matt Brody (Zac Efron), a two-time gold medalist — in solo events — who blew off his teammates in the relay event. Matt has since devolved into a law-breaking, self-indulgent bad boy who still believes the world owes him a living, despite having become a social media joke.

Mitch doesn’t want anything to do with this arrogant loser, but his micro-managing boss (Rob Huebel) insists, believing that adding Matt to the team could be a public relations gold mine.