G20 – Film Review

In G20, an action-thriller with the makings of a geopolitical Die Hard, director Patricia Riggen places Oscar-winner Viola Davis front and center as a U.S. president forced to return to her military roots when terrorists seize control of a high-stakes international summit. Despite a timely premise and a cast packed with talent, the film delivers more formula than firepower. With a heavy-handed script, clunky dialogue, and uneven pacing, G20 ultimately squanders its potential, becoming a middling genre entry that leans too hard on tropes without earning the tension they require.

The setup is undeniably bold. President Danielle Sutton (Viola Davis) is not only a decorated military veteran but a sitting head of state caught in a brutal siege during a G20 summit in Cape Town. When a team of mercenaries, led by the villainous Edward Rutledge (Antony Starr), storms the venue, Sutton must rely on her combat training to protect world leaders, her own family, and the fragile balance of global power.

At the center of this storm is Davis, whose gravitas anchors the film, elevating even its most clichéd scenes. Whether she’s staring down the barrel of a gun or delivering a rousing speech about economic equity, Davis embodies a woman balancing ferocity with diplomacy. Her physical performance is as convincing as her emotional range, and her presence keeps G20 from tipping into straight-to-streaming mediocrity. However, even her excellence can’t overcome a screenplay that feels overstuffed and underdeveloped.

Writers Caitlin Parrish, Erica Weiss, and the Miller brothers load the script with topical concerns — cryptocurrency, global corruption, economic inequality, and misinformation via deepfakes — but these themes are explored at a surface level. Rather than diving into the nuance of any one issue, the film uses them as window dressing to justify action beats. The result is a patchwork of modern anxieties filtered through genre spectacle, with little room to breathe.

The action sequences themselves are competent but rarely inventive. There’s a utilitarian feel to the choreography — guns blaze, bodies fall, and Viola Davis dispatches villains with brute efficiency — but there’s little in the way of standout set pieces. A late-film helicopter showdown hints at the scale and operatic intensity the movie could have embraced throughout, but by then, fatigue has already set in.

What G20 lacks most is rhythm. The pacing is uneven, bouncing from family drama to global diplomacy to firefights without a strong tonal throughline. The first act is bogged down by exposition and thin character development, particularly regarding Sutton’s children Serena (Marsai Martin) and Demetrius, and her husband Derek (Anthony Anderson, underutilized). While the inclusion of the First Family adds stakes, their dynamic feels more sketched than lived-in. The film attempts to explore Sutton’s struggle to balance duty and motherhood, but these emotional beats are drowned out by the constant need to move the plot forward.

Antony Starr, best known for his work as Homelander on The Boys, plays Rutledge with his usual steely intensity, but the character feels disappointingly one-dimensional. His motivations are rooted in betrayal and grief, but the script never lets him evolve beyond the archetype of the unhinged soldier turned anarchist. His cyber-terrorism — anchored by the manipulation of deepfake technology and the exploitation of crypto markets — is fascinating on paper, but the film reduces these ideas to little more than high-tech MacGuffins.

Supporting players like Ramón Rodríguez as Agent Manny Ruiz and Elizabeth Marvel as Treasury Secretary Joanna Worth do their best with what they’re given, but most characters outside of Sutton are underserved. Worth’s arc, which hints at a deeper conspiracy, comes across as rushed and predictable, and Rodríguez’s Ruiz operates as a stock action sidekick — reliable, wounded, and ever-loyal. The ensemble includes capable actors like Clark Gregg, Sabrina Impacciatore, and Douglas Hodge, yet they are mostly relegated to background chatter or hostages reacting to chaos.

Riggen, known for more grounded films like The 33, directs competently but doesn’t bring a distinct visual identity to the action-thriller format. The cinematography is serviceable but flat, and the setting — a high-security luxury hotel in Cape Town — lacks the character or claustrophobia of more effective siege narratives. There are moments where the film attempts to evoke a sense of global urgency, particularly in the cutaways to media reactions and crypto-market fluctuations, but these glimpses never fully integrate with the central story.

The score, similarly, is functional but forgettable, offering pounding drums and swelling strings in all the expected places. It does little to elevate the stakes or punctuate the emotional crescendos, which are already undercut by the script’s predictability.

Where G20 succeeds, it’s almost entirely because of Viola Davis. She brings a sense of gravitas and credibility to even the most implausible moments, making you believe, if only briefly, that a sitting U.S. president could go full commando to rescue her family and fellow dignitaries. Her performance is a reminder of what an action-thriller with brains could be. Unfortunately, the film surrounding her never quite matches that promise.

Thematically, the movie wants to say something about the intersection of technology, power, and human vulnerability — how trust in institutions can be shattered by manipulation, and how leadership must be both compassionate and resolute. But the execution is too scattered, and the characters too thinly drawn, to leave a lasting impression. Instead, G20 plays it safe, layering familiar action beats over a veneer of political intrigue and contemporary fears.

In the end, G20 feels like a missed opportunity. With a powerhouse like Davis in the lead and a topical hook that taps into real-world anxieties, this could have been a smart, taut, edge-of-your-seat thriller. Instead, it settles for being a generic action movie with flashes of ambition and a lot of unrealized potential. It may satisfy those looking for a low-stakes, late-night adrenaline fix, but for viewers hoping for substance to match the spectacle, it’s more frustrating than fulfilling.