When Air Force One gets shot down over enemy territory, the U.S. President and the British Prime Minister find themselves on the run and working together to thwart a global conspiracy that threatens the entire free world. A film by Ilya Naishuller, starring Idris Elba, John Cena, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Carla Gugino, Jack Quaid, Stephen Root, Sarah Niles, Richard Coyle, and Paddy Considine.
HEADS of STATE
Ilya Naishuller
(2025)
During the annual Spanish festival La Tomatina in Buñol, a joint CIA-MI6 task force launches an operation to track down Russian arms dealer Viktor Gradov, who has resurfaced after vanishing for over two years.
La Tomatina is an annual festival held in the town of Buñol, Spain, where thousands of people gather to throw overripe tomatoes at each other in what is considered the world’s biggest food fight. Taking place on the last Wednesday of August, the event began in 1945 as a spontaneous tomato fight during a local parade and has since become an official celebration attracting visitors from around the globe. The fight lasts about an hour and starts after a traditional event where participants try to climb a greased pole to grab a ham. Around 145,000 kilograms of tomatoes, specially grown for the festival and softened to prevent injury, are thrown during the battle. To keep the event safe and enjoyable, only tomatoes can be thrown, and participants must follow specific rules. After the fight, fire trucks wash down the streets, and the town comes alive with music, parades, and other festivities.
MI6 agent Noel (Priyanka Chopra Jonas) poses as a news reporter, while Jack (Aled llŷr Thomas) acts as her cameraman. Coop (Sharlto Copley) surveils the scene from a high vantage point, also disguised as a cameraman.
Meanwhile, Peters (Darya Charusha) and Francis (Peter Guiney) blend in as tourists at a nearby café.
Backing them up, Cho (Arthur Lee) and Lewis (Shaq B. Grant) monitor the operation from a concealed control room inside a fake television broadcast van.
But Viktor Gradov (Paddy Considine) outsmarts them by sending out three decoys, all dressed like him, moving through different locations. This forces the team to figure out which one is the real Gradov.
When facial recognition can’t confirm his identity, Noel orders a gait analysis which requires a patch to ECHELON, a highly secretive global surveillance network operated by the intelligence agencies of the Five Eyes (FVEY) alliance. A request for a real-time patch is sent to ECHELON’s director (Peter De Jersey), who authorizes the joint CIA-MI6 task force to access ECHELON’s servers for a 60-second window.
Gait analysis is the systematic assessment of how a person walks or runs, with the goal of detecting abnormalities in movement and understanding the underlying causes. This evaluation examines the complex interactions between the body’s joints, muscles, and nervous systems as a person moves from one place to another. Gait analysis can be performed through simple observation or with advanced technology, such as video cameras, motion sensors, force platforms, and electromyography, to measure parameters like step length, stride, cadence, joint angles, and muscle activity.
When the CIA-MI6 team gains access to ECHELON, Viktor’s men strike simultaneously, eliminating all field agents. Meanwhile, Olga (Katrina Durden) storms the fake broadcast van, killing both Cho and Lewis, clearing the way for hacker Arthur Hammond (Stephen Root) to upload malicious code to ECHELON’s servers. Though Noel survives the ambush and intercepts Olga and Arthur as they exit the van, he’s shot by Sasha (Aleksandr Kuznetsov) and left for dead.
During a state visit, UK Prime Minister Sam Clarke (Idris Elba) and newly-elected US President Will Derringer (John Cena) are briefed about the botched operation in Spain by their aides Quincy Harrington (Richard Coyle) and Simone Bradshaw (Sarah Niles).
The leaders publicly announce their clean energy partnership featuring revolutionary pebble-bed reactor technology jointly developed by both nations. Despite this show of unity, the two men clash privately as Sam considers the former action star unfit for the presidency.
Their heated argument spills into public view just as reporter Jack Gordon (Adrian Lukis) questions them about six dead British and American operatives in Spain, casualties of the failed mission to capture arms dealer Viktor Gradov. From that moment, the situation rapidly unravels.
To repair their public image and demonstrate unity, Quincy proposes that Sam and Will travel together on Air Force One to the upcoming NATO summit in Trieste. Though Sam and Will initially refuse, Simone backs Quincy’s idea and advises Will that he needs to demonstrate his ability to make friends. Quincy convinces Sam that this moment is crucial, emphasizing that Sam needs Will and that their joint appearance will likely boost Sam’s poll numbers by three points. Quincy and Sam will travel with the advance team to prepare the runway with the press to capture their historic touchdown.
Mid-flight, Gradov’s operative disguised as the onboard chef (Wade Briggs) breaches the control room, eliminating three officers before switching on Air Force One’s transponder. The sudden appearance of the aircraft on civilian radar systems allows Gradov’s forces to launch a devastating attack that ultimately brings down the presidential plane.
As Air Force One plummets from the sky, the chef seizes a parachute and destroys the remaining ones before escaping. Secret Service Agent Crasson (Steven Cree) manages to secure the last two parachutes for Sam and Will. With the crippled aircraft now descending into hostile Belarusian airspace, Crasson instructs them to make for the U.S. safe house at Golden Mountain Mining Company under the Gdańsk Bridge in Warsaw, and shoves both leaders from the doomed aircraft moments before it crashes, killing all remaining personnel aboard.
Breaking news footage of Air Force One going down over Western Belarus has sent shockwaves around the world, with President Will Derringer and Prime Minister Sam Clarke both presumed dead. The UK Parliament has convened an emergency session to discuss succession protocols, while Vice President Elizabeth Kirk (Carley Gugino) has been sworn in as acting president in Trieste.
Stranded in Belarus, Sam suspects someone in their inner circle has betrayed them, and this could be the beginning of something much worse. Convinced their enemies are monitoring all communications, he insists they destroy their phones and move quickly to the safe house. With help from a Belarusian farmer (Ingeborga Dapkunaite) who rescues them from local teenage thugs and offers to smuggle them across the border in her truck full of sheep, the two leaders manage to reach the safe house in Warsaw.
Meanwhile, ECHELON awaits a system security update before commencing continuity of government protocols, which require acting president Elizabeth Kirk’s voiceprint and retinal scan. But Viktor Gradov has been planning for this exact moment. The second the system reboots, Arthur’s malicious code activates, giving Viktor full control over ECHELON.
At the safe house, Sam and Will meet CIA officer Marty Comer (Jack Quaid), who admits there’s no CIA protocol for their situation: both of them being alive after the world watched them die. They discover that ECHELON’s servers were hacked, leaking a trove of classified documents that expose decades of covert NATO operations, including industrial espionage, economic sabotage, and foreign election interference.
What they don’t know is that ECHELON also intercepted security footage of Sam and Will entering the safe house. Now, Viktor has ordered his men to Warsaw to kill them all.
Directed by Russian filmmaker Ilya Naishuller from a screenplay by Josh Appelbaum, André Nemec, and Harrison Query, HEADS of STATE is a wildly entertaining action comedy.
This film hits every mark you’d want: a stellar cast, hilarious dialogue, pulse-pounding chases, and those wonderfully relentless bad guys we love to hate. While the plot twists are predictable, they’re executed so well that I don’t mind at all.
What really makes this movie work is the electric chemistry between Idris Elba and John Cena. Elba is absolutely magnetic as the UK Prime Minister, bringing both gravitas and unexpected comedic timing to the role.
The supporting cast doesn’t disappoint either, with solid performances from Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Jack Quaid. Despite his limited screen time, Jack Quaid completely steals every scene he’s in as Marty Comer. His character is so compelling that he deserves his own spin-off movie.
HEADS of STATE falls into that special category of guilty pleasure films, the kind I’ll happily watch multiple times even though I know exactly how everything plays out. Sometimes the best entertainment doesn’t need to surprise you; it just needs to deliver the goods with style.
HEADS of STATE was released on Amazon Prime Video on 2 July 2025.
