Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
Podcast (theatrical-movie-review-podcast): Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
HEADS OF STATE MOVIE REVIEW
There have been some great entries into the action-comedy road trip genre, with films like Tango & Cash, The Long Kiss Goodnight, The Nice Guys, Midnight Run, and recently Deadpool & Wolverine. Now, Idris Elba and John Cena are using their combined charisma and endless charm in the genre. This was dumped straight to Amazon with hardly any marketing, despite the big-name headliners. After a CIA/MI6 operation meant to capture Russian arms dealer Viktor Gradov goes south, Gradov and his criminal lot acquire a link to ECHELON, the secretive (and probably not completely legal) global surveillance program. Meanwhile, Sam Clarke (Elba), six-term Prime Minister of Britain, receives a state visit from the newly elected United States President Will Derringer (Cena), a former action movie star. The two men do not get along, and after a public argument breaks out in front of the press, their respective aides suggest that they fly to the upcoming NATO summit together aboard Air Force One. Mid-flight, Gradov’s people attack the plane and send it exploding into the Belarus forest. Thus begins the buddy road trip where Derringer and Clarke must work together to survive and stop the villainous plot to disrupt all the world powers, and ideally not kill each other in the process. Rae, Neil, and T.C. use their decades of experience facing attacks from Russian arms dealers, Germans robbing plazas, and criminal forces disrupting vacations, to decide where Heads of State lands.
DIRECTED BY: Ilya Naishuller
STARRING: John Cena, Idris Elba, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Jack Quaid, Paddy Considine, Stephen Root, Carla Gugino, Sarah Niles, Richard Coyle, Clare Foster, Katrina Durden, Aleksandr Kuznetsov, Sharlto Copley, Adrian Lukis
YOUR REVIEWERS
T.C. De Witt (Screener Squad)
T.C. De Witt is a multi-awarded writer/director originally from Wisconsin and now based in Los Angeles. His life has been devoted to the arts since he was a child. He’s been a stage performer, playwright, stand-up comic, film and television actor, radio DJ, podcaster published author, recorded musician, and comic writer/illustrator. He is now a professional screenwriter and has been thriving for the past decade, regularly offering his talents to production studios in LA, Chicago, Milwaukee, and internationally in Sydney and Poland. He’s provided content for Amazon Prime, Netflix, and several YouTube partners. His films have screened internationally, and his stageplays have been performed across the country. In the last ten years, he has directed 57 films, 23 episodes of his series The One Minute Rewatch, 300+ episodes of podcasts, and his multi-award-winning short film Screen: Righter screened at the Festival de Cannes in 2016. He has released two feature films, The Princess Knight and A Christmas Sunset. He thrives on collaboration and the thrill of sharing stories in all forms.
Lyrae Anderson (Screener Squad)
You can call me Rae. You can also call me a film lover. I’ll watch it all — small screen; big screen, and everything in between. I have attended and worked for Fantastic Fest and South by Southwest for many years. I married a film geek as well. While we don’t agree on everything, we agree on our love of movies.
Neil Anderson (Screener Squad)
I first got hooked on movies when I saw Star Wars at a drive-in theater as a kid. Growing up in a small, rural town meant not having access to a lot of movies. In college, that all changed. I couldn’t get enough. I love it all — flicks, films, movies, and cinema. I still have that wide-eyed wonder of that kid watching movies from the back of a pick-up truck at the drive-in.
You can subscribe to the Highly Suspect Reviews and Screener Squad series of podcasts on iTunes, Spotify, and more, or use our RSS feed on whatever podcast service you use: https://oneofus.net/feed/theatrical-movie-review-podcast/ and please leave us a review!
Please think about becoming a paid subscriber to Oneofus.net, support our huge network of shows, and get access to tons of bonus shows and videos in our forums! We cannot keep this site going without support from our listeners. For added information about being a subscriber, the benefits, and the forums, please go here.
