Heads Of State

It’s very rare for a Russian expat director to move to Hollywood and make a film in the genre where another Russian expat director, also in Hollywood, already made a seminal title.

This is what has happened to Ilya Naishuller, Timur Bekmambetov’s protege. Educated in the West, fluent both in English and western popular culture, he has made a buddy action comedy and ended up in the same niche as Andrei Konchalovsky, who made Tango And Cash, which took buddy comedy to a kitch high.

Naishuller’s Heads Of State is a vastly superior picture in mainstream terms. It is brainless fun. But sometimes, brainless fun takes more brains to make than people anticipate and it's not good enough to be considered great cinema or gain a cult following. So how did Naishuller manage the almost impossible feat of falling short to his Russian predecessor?

The story revolves around an American president (John Cena), who is a former action star – a Ronald Reagan caricature with his folksy demeanor and populist approach – and the British Prime Minister (Idris Elba), who is a former military guy but also a responsible and somewhat educated statesman.

From the get go there’s a huge issue. These guys come from allied states who are proud of their “special relationship”, which sees the UK readily align with the US on most issues. At the same time even if the US is far more powerful, the UK isn’t small fry so even that divide cannot truly fuel the banter between the premiers.

Both of them are men of action. One of them is an action star on screen only and the other is a military man who faced real service. There are traces of conflict but no real opposition to build upon. It’s not a story of a rude American dude and an uptight Oxbridge brainiac. The film would have been on firmer footing if the pair had been the American and the Russian president as any decent Cold War filmmaker would have them be. Ever since James Bond’s heyday, it was always about 007 overcoming differences with his Soviet counterparts to beat the greater evil. Now, as the Cold War has become hot in Ukraine, maybe this bond isn’t the most popular approach but then again if you want to make a film about heads of state either make it right or leave it be and wait for a better moment. It’s not as if people can’t come up with some other excuse for Cena and Elba to blow things up.

Of course, Jim Belushi and Arnold Schwarzenegger in Walter Hill’s Red Heat could have been a Yank and a Brit. And then that film would be called Brannigan and be awaiting rediscovery by Edgar Wright in Quentin Tarantino’s New Beverly Cinema. But Red Heat is not Brannigan. It’s a legitimate Walter Hill joint globally beloved without any need of rediscovery because watching it is just a globally accepted rite of passage.

If Heads Of State needed to keep the Cena–Elba axis (already tested with mild results in James Gunn’s Suicide Squad), maybe a pairing of an American President and aleader of an economically endangered African country could have brought a stronger culture clash. Naishuller, however, is dealing with an impotent premise. These two statesmen are running away from assassins across Europe, being pursued by an international but Russian-centric cabal of conspirators who want to tear NATO apart in a run of the mill conspiracy.

Although somewhat rooted in the reality of Russian hybrid warfare and disinformation campaigns, this plot is just a McGuffin. What it does do, however, is bring Naishuller’s Russianness into play. His career began with Hardcore Henry, a Bekmambetov-produced but internationally aimed actionfest. He started working abroad and never looked back. Naishuller’s signature POV aesthetics worked its way into Weeknd’s video for False Alarm, and then he did a solid job on Nobody with David Leitch’s stunt-heavy and second unit led production showcasing the Leitch-Stahelski brand of stunt-craft and Naishuller’s knack for gallows humor and hardcore gaming-infused action.

All the while Naishuller produced films in Russia but received a public backlash for the TV show Karamora, starring Russian A-lister Danila Kozlovsky. Naishuller acrimoniously abandoned the project.

It’s safe to say that there is no love lost between Naishuller and the Putin regime and Heads Of State may be perceived as an additional act of treason of this director by Moscovite siloviks. However, it is also an act of treason towards cinema itself. It’s ridiculous to have a Russian director who obviously has strong opinions about Russia and especially about the Russo-Ukrainian war make such a tone-deaf film about the Russian threat.

While Naishuller has every right to act as a “dumb American director” who doesn’t care about issues and just wants to blow things up – it simply doesn’t cut it in this day and age. Especially because, as an artist, Naishuller cannot escape Russia because his best film and his calling card is still his Russian debut.

Making such a half baked and tone deaf film that deals in the most moronic of stereotypes is inexcusable for any director, but especially one who has such deep concern for the Russian state of affairs.

The slow first half of the film, featuring a criminally underused Jack Quaid, is followed by an action packed second half where Naishuller relegates himself to the level of a glorified second unit maestro.

Some of the stuff we demand from the action genre gets delivered, and the amount of money spent is on display some of the time. However, Heads Of State lacks the soul of Jalmari Helander’s Big Game, which comes to mind as the latest addition to this subgenre of American President in peril cinema.

Amazon has primed Naishuller to take over the directorial reins on Road House 2. But he is not safe there either because Russo-Armenian director Nick Sarkisov made a great MMA film Embattled five years back. So again, there is a strong chance of Naishuller falling short of a Russian predecessor’s Hollywood success.

Reviewed on: 05 Sep 2025