Movie Reviews

G20 Movie Review: Viola Davis Anchors an Uneven Thriller

Published

1 year ago

April 14, 2025

G20 Movie Review: Viola Davis Anchors an Uneven Thriller

In this G20 movie review we’re discussing 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.

Setup:

The setup is undeniably bold. President Danielle Sutton (Viola Davis) is not only a decorated military veteran but also 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.

A Weak Script:

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 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.

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 (Christopher Farrar), and her husband Derek (Anthony Anderson). While the First Family adds stakes, their dynamic feels more sketched than lived-in.

Supporting Actors That Feel Underused:

Antony Starr, best known for The Boys, plays Rutledge with intensity, but the character feels disappointingly one-dimensional. His cyber-terrorism, rooted in betrayal and grief, could have been compelling, but the film reduces it to high-tech MacGuffins.

Supporting players like Ramón Rodríguez (Agent Manny Ruiz) and Elizabeth Marvel (Treasury Secretary Joanna Worth) are competent but underused. The ensemble, including Clark Gregg, Sabrina Impacciatore, and Douglas Hodge, are mostly sidelined as hostages or background chatter.

Lackluster Direction:

Riggen, known for The 33, directs with competence but without flair. The cinematography is flat, and the hotel setting lacks personality. Attempts to show global urgency via media cutaways fall flat. The score offers pounding drums and swelling strings—but adds little emotion or tension.

Viola Davis is the Standout:

Viola Davis is the reason to watch G20. She delivers gravitas, physicality, and poise that elevate the material. Her performance makes the absurd seem possible, at least for a moment. Unfortunately, the rest of the film rarely rises to meet her level.

Thematically, G20 wants to say something about technology, leadership, and trust. But with thin characters and scattered execution, it says little of lasting value.

Overall:

G20 feels like a missed opportunity. With Viola Davis in the lead and a globally relevant premise, it had the chance to be something great. Instead, it’s a generic action-thriller with a few highlights and a lot of wasted potential. G20 has the bones of a smart political action-thriller, and Viola Davis gives it everything she’s got. But clunky writing and flat direction hold it back from greatness. It’s worth a watch for fans of Air Force One or The Woman King, but temper your expectations.

G20 Review: Struggles to Rise Above Its Own Premise

Acting – 5/10
Cinematography/Visual Effects – 4.5/10
Plot/Screenplay – 5/10
Setting/Theme – 6/10
Watchability – 5/10
Rewatchability – 3/10

User Review

0
(0 votes)

Summary

G20 kicks off with a bold premise and powerhouse performance from Viola Davis, playing a U.S. President forced to become a soldier again when terrorists take over a global summit. Director Patricia Riggen crafts an intense, globe-spanning thriller that mixes geopolitical suspense with high-octane action. But despite strong performances and dynamic set pieces, the film struggles to balance its sharp concept with underwritten subplots and supporting roles that fade into the background. Ultimately, G20 lands somewhere between Air Force One and The Woman King—ambitious, timely, but not as explosive as it aims to be.

Pros

Viola Davis commands the screen with a physically and emotionally grounded performance.
Unique fusion of political drama and action thriller.
Cinematic use of Cape Town brings international flair.

Cons

Supporting characters lack depth.
The second act loses narrative momentum.
Attempts to juggle social commentary and spectacle don’t always land.

Acting

Cinematography/Visual Effects

Plot/Screenplay

Setting/Theme

Watchability

Rewatchability

Summary: G20 kicks off with a bold premise and powerhouse performance from Viola Davis, playing a U.S. President forced to become a soldier again when terrorists take over a global summit. Director Patricia Riggen crafts an intense, globe-spanning thriller that mixes geopolitical suspense with high-octane action. But despite strong performances and dynamic set pieces, the film struggles to balance its sharp concept with underwritten subplots and supporting roles that fade into the background. Ultimately, G20 lands somewhere between Air Force One and The Woman King—ambitious, timely, but not as explosive as it aims to be.

2.4

Uneven Thrills

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Movie Reviews

1986 Movie Reviews – Dangerously Close, Fire with Fire, Last Resort, and Short Circuit | The Nerdy

Published

1 hour ago

May 9, 2026

Press Room

1986 Movie Reviews – Dangerously Close, Fire with Fire, Last Resort, and Short Circuit | The Nerdy

by Sean P. Aune | May 9, 2026

Welcome to an exciting year-long project here at The Nerdy. 1986 was an exciting year for films giving us a lot of films that would go on to be beloved favorites and cult classics. It was also the start to a major shift in cultural and societal norms, and some of those still reverberate to this day.

We’re going to pick and choose which movies we hit, but right now the list stands at nearly four dozen.

Yes, we’re insane, but 1986 was that great of a year for film.

The articles will come out – in most cases – on the same day the films hit theaters in 1986 so that it is their true 40th anniversary. All films are also watched again for the purposes of these reviews and are not being done from memory. In some cases, it truly will be the first time we’ve seen them.

This time around, it’s May 9, 1986, and we’re off to see Dangerously Close, Fire with Fire, Last Resort, and Short Circuit.

Dangerously Close

I would love to tell you what the point of this film was, but I’m not sure it knew.

An elite school has turned into a magnet school, attracting some “undesirables,” so a group of students known as The Sentinels take up policing their school, but will they go too far?

The basic plot of the film is simple enough, but there is an oddball “twist” toward the end tht served no real purpose and somehow turns the whole thing into a murder-mystery. Mysteries only work when you know you’re supposed to be solving them, and not when you’re alerted to one existing with 15 minutes left.

Decent 80s music, some stylistic shots, absolutely no substance.

Fire with Fire

Oh wait… I may want to go back and watch Dangerously Close again over this one.

Joe Fisk (Craig Sheffer) is being held at a juvenile delinquent facility close a high-end all-girls Catholic school. One day while running through the forest as part of an exercise he spots Catholic schoolgirl Lisa Taylor (Virginia Madsen) and the two fall immediately in love because… reasons.

This film is just so incredibly lazy. The ‘love story’ really can just be chalked up to ‘hormones.’

Last Resort

Once again I am baffled how Charles Grodin kept getting work so much through out the 1980s.

George Lollar (Grodin) is a salesman in Chicago in need of a vacation. He loads up the family and takes them to Club Sand, which turns out to be a swingers resort as well as surrounded by barbed wire to keep rebels out.

There are a lot of talented people in this movie such as Phil Hartman and Megan Mullally, but the film lets them down at every turn with half-baked ideas of jokes. Supposedly, Grodin rewrote nearly the entire script and I think that explains a lot about how this film feels like unfinished ideas. It’s a Frankenstein monster of a script with half-complete ideas that feel like they are from completely different movies.

Short Circuit

Lets just get this out of the way: What in the world was Fisher Stevens doing?

NOVA Laboratory has come up with a new series of military robots called S.A.I.N.T. (Strategic Artificially Intelligent Nuclear Transport). Following a successful demonstration for the military, Five is struck by an electrical surge and finds itself needing ‘input.’ After inadvertently escaping the lab, it wands into the life of Stephanie Speck (Ally Sheedy), who cares for animals and takes Five in. Dr. Newton Crosby (Steve Guttenberg) is trying to get five back, while the security team wants to destroy it.

Overall, the film is thin, but harmless. The 80s did seem to love a ‘technology being used for the wrong reasons’ theme, and this falls into that camp. What is mind-blowing, however, is Stevens as Ben Jabituya, Crosby’s assistant. Not only is he wearing brown face, but he’s doing a horrible Indian accent and later reveals he was born and raised in the U.S.

His whole character is mystifying.

Honestly, a couple of decades ago I may have recommended this movie, but it’s a definite pass now just for being offensive.

1986 Movie Reviews will continue on May 16, 2026, with Sweet Liberty and Top Gun.

Movie Reviews

Movie Review: AFFECTION – Assignment X

Published

13 hours ago

May 9, 2026

Press Room

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer

Posted: May 8th, 2026 / 08:34 PM

Rating: Not Rated
Stars: Jessica Rothe, Joseph Cross, Julianna Layne
Writer: BT Meza
Director: BT Meza
Distributor: Brainstorm Media
Release Date: May 8, 2026

AFFECTION is an odd title for this tale. While it is about a number of topics and emotions, fondness isn’t one of them. Obsession, definitely. Love, possibly. The kind of general warm fellow feelings associated with “affection”? No.

There have been a lot of movies lately in which characters – mostly women – are grappling with false identities and/or false memories imposed upon them, mostly by men.

Let us stipulate that the protagonist (Jessica Rothe) in AFFECTION is not an android or in an artificial reality. However, we can tell something is way off from the opening sequence. A car is stalled on a tree-bordered highway. Rothe’s character is lying face down on the asphalt beside it, possibly dead.

But then the young woman rises, dragging a broken ankle. She experiences a full-body seizure. Fighting to recover, she sees oncoming headlights and tries to run, only to be hit by a car.

The woman wakes up in a bed she doesn’t recognize, next to a man (Joseph Cross) she likewise is sure she’s never seen before. One big confrontation later, the man says his name is Bruce – and that the woman is his wife, Ellie.

Ellie insists that her name is Sarah Thompson, and she is married to someone else, with a son. When she sees her reflection in a mirror, she doesn’t relate to the face looking back at her.

Bruce counters that Ellie has a rare neurological condition that causes her to block out her waking life and believe her dreams are real. This is why they agreed, together, to move to this isolated house, without the kinds of interruptions that can hinder Ellie’s recovery.

The set-up is presented in a way where we share Ellie’s skepticism. But Ellie and Bruce’s little daughter Alice (Julianna Layne) immediately identifies Ellie as “Mommy!” Alice appears to be too young to be in on any kind of deception, so what is going on here?

AFFECTION eventually explains this via a helpful videotape, though it’s so convoluted that viewers watching on streaming may want to replay the sequence to make sure they understand the exposition.

Writer/director BT Meza musters a sense of menace and lurking weirdness, as well as making great use of his location.

We still have a lot of questions, many of which are still unanswered by the film’s end. It may not matter to the points AFFECTION is trying to make, but a better sense of exactly how all this started might help our investment.

As it is, despite a heroically versatile performance by Rothe, a credible and anguished turn by Cross and appealing work from Layne, we’re so busy trying to piece together what’s important and what’s not and how we’re supposed to feel about all of it that it can be hard to keep track of the action as it unfolds.

Agree or not, Meza’s arguments are lucid and illustrated clearly by AFFECTION’s events. However, the movie is structured in a way that becomes more frustrating as it goes. We comprehend it intellectually but can’t engage viscerally.

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Movie Reviews

8News Reel Talk: ‘The Devil Wears Prada 2’ movie review

Published

1 day ago

May 8, 2026

Press Room

8News Reel Talk: ‘The Devil Wears Prada 2’ movie review

RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) — In this episode of 8News Reel Talk, digital producer Julia Broberg is joined by anchor Deanna Allbrittin and reporter Allison Williams to talk about “The Devil Wears Prada 2.”

The hosts gave their reviews and assigned the following star ratings:

Deanna: ★★★★.5

Allison: ★★★.25

Julia: ★★

To watch more livestreams and digital video content, head to the WRIC+ Originals page. You can also watch full on-demand videos on your smart TV using the WRIC+ app.