Viola Davis, one of the greatest actors of her generation, has done it all. The 5th woman in history to win an EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony), what more can she do with her career? The answer to that is to become Gerard Butler. G20 is perhaps the most Gerard Butler film that Butler has never starred in, and good on Davis to start branching out into the action hero status at the age of 60!

In G20, newly appointed US President Danielle Sutton deals with a rebellious, misunderstood teenage daughter whilst also trying to deliver on her campaign promise of the creation of some confusing crypto digital currency for poor people in foreign countries. When she arrives in the G20 summit in South Africa, the President has to use her military skills when the event is taken over by former Australian special forces officer Edward Rutledge (Antony Starr) who takes all the world leaders hostage to deep fake their voices to crash the world markets, making him billions in some different crypto-currency. There are so many 2025 buzzwords in this film that it’s going to feel so infinitely dated in just a few years (that’s if anyone even remembers this movie exists a few months from now). ‘Crypto Wallet’, ‘Blockchain’, ‘Deep Fakes’, the film is chock full of these buzzwords and the writers want you to know this a modern action film and the politics are definitely up to date…

 The script is pretty awful, full of some of the worst lines of the year so far including this cracker: “You want change? Start with yourself, not the crypto wallet”. What a scorcher of a line, said from the hero to the villain. The story could’ve been an interesting one, a more modern take on Air Force One, but the story beats are just so generic. At every turn they decide to take the predictable and boring route, and what you end up with is a predictable and boring film. There’s so many tropes and cliche’s in this film you can’t help but laugh. Of course Davis has a super smart but rebellious teenage daughter (Marsai Martin) who she has a fraught relationship with but they’ll connect by the end when they combine their skills together. There’s even a scene when her protective secret service agent (Ramon Rodriguez) actually dives in front of her when she’s about to get shot, this thing has been cliched so many times in movies that I had never actually seen it used seriously in an action movie! 

There’s nothing Viola Davis can do to elevate this film, and even her fighting scenes look very clunky (although to the films credit, she’s meant to have not done any fighting in 20 years). Antony Starr gives the performance you expect from him these days, super smiley and psychotic. One thing the film does get right is that the Australian and South African accents are probably some of the most naturally sinister ones you can have to be honest, and they use them well.

Overall, Amazon spent far too much money on some truly predictable slop that I’m not sure is going to draw in many viewers at all. They used to make direct-to-DVD action movies, now the make direct-to-streaming and they feature Oscar winning actors.