{"id":1832,"date":"2025-07-05T20:30:42","date_gmt":"2025-07-05T20:30:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/firearmupgrades.com\/?p=1832"},"modified":"2025-07-05T20:30:42","modified_gmt":"2025-07-05T20:30:42","slug":"presidents-as-action-heroes-in-hollywood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/firearmupgrades.com\/?p=1832","title":{"rendered":"Presidents as Action Heroes in Hollywood"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

\n

When Winston Churchill popularized the phrase \u201cspecial relationship\u201d to describe the strong bond between the United States and the United Kingdom, I wonder if he could have predicted the new action-comedy Heads of State<\/em>. This cultural curiosity, available to stream on Prime Video, represents the transferal to an ally of a uniquely American fixation: the leader that not only leads but also kicks ass<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Heads of State<\/em>\u2014which I strongly endorse, should you find yourself up late a few drinks deep with no one to talk to\u2014is an idiotic fantasy in which John Cena and Idris Elba end up jumping out of an exploding plane, dangling from a helicopter, leaping off a speeding train, blazing an armored car through a wall of fire, and attending a NATO summit. (Weirdly, that last one is the film\u2019s climax.)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\n
\n

When Winston Churchill popularized the phrase \u201cspecial relationship\u201d to describe the strong bond between the United States and the United Kingdom, I wonder if he could have predicted the new action-comedy Heads of State<\/em>. This cultural curiosity, available to stream on Prime Video, represents the transferal to an ally of a uniquely American fixation: the leader that not only leads but also kicks ass<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Heads of State<\/em>\u2014which I strongly endorse, should you find yourself up late a few drinks deep with no one to talk to\u2014is an idiotic fantasy in which John Cena and Idris Elba end up jumping out of an exploding plane, dangling from a helicopter, leaping off a speeding train, blazing an armored car through a wall of fire, and attending a NATO summit. (Weirdly, that last one is the film\u2019s climax.)<\/p>\n

Cena, the WWE wrestler, plays a Hollywood action hero named Will Derringer (whose biggest success was the Water Cobra<\/em> series) who has recently been elected president. He\u2019s arrogant and a little dense but also charming as hell with a kind heart. Elba, the only actor to have both played Nelson Mandela and get voted People<\/em>\u2019s Sexiest Man Alive, plays British Prime Minister Sam Clarke, almost at the end of his first term and worn to the nub by the stresses of the job yet deep down still the idealist who bootstrapped himself up from the working class, attended Cambridge, and spent some years in the military.<\/p>\n

After a first joint press conference that does not go well, their respective comms teams suggest they put on a smile and a show for the public. Derringer offers Clarke a ride on Air Force One to a NATO meeting in Trieste, Italy, but along the way the plane is hijacked. The two parachute out, landing without communication in Belarus. (I wonder if the Max series The Eastern Gate<\/a>, <\/em>set predominantly in that troubled nation, was streaming on the plane?)<\/p>\n


\n
\n <\/span>
John Cena and Idris Elba hold on to seats on a plane, a hole in the plane is seen behind them.<\/figcaption>

John Cena and Idris Elba in Heads of State<\/em>.Prime Video<\/span> <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The film was directed by Ilya Naishuller, a Russian-born director who studied at New York University and has made two of the more extreme action films of the last decade, Hardcore Henry <\/em>and Nobody<\/em>. (He has also directed a music video for the Weeknd.) That the first major set piece in Heads of State <\/em>is set on Air Force One is particularly gutsy of Naishuller, considering that the great Wolfgang Petersen set one of the finest action movies of the 1990s almost entirely in the same location.<\/p>\n

That film, Air Force One<\/em>, starred Harrison Ford as a noble, interventionist U.S. president almost undone by a Russian terrorist (Gary Oldman). Like Die Hard<\/em>, much of the film\u2019s success is due to its internal geography\u2014the audience is well aware of where everyone is at all times, as tension is amped up until the final showdown.<\/p>\n

In great U.S. action-adventure fashion, both Air Force One <\/em>and Die Hard <\/em>get a great catchphrase that plays to their performer\u2019s strengths. Bruce Willis gets to say \u201cyippiee-ki-yay, motherfucker<\/a>,\u201d while Ford\u2014the bold, blunt voice of the United States\u2014is as subtle as a block of concrete, demanding of Oldman: \u201cGet off my plane!<\/a>\u201d Ford isn\u2019t just the leader of the free world; he\u2019s a quick-thinking, one-man army who served his nation in Vietnam, so he\u2019s able to preserve the status quo and <\/em>look cool while doing it.<\/p>\n


\n \"Harrison
\n <\/span>
Harrison Ford in Air Force One.<\/figcaption>

Harrison Ford in Air Force One<\/em>.Sony Pictures<\/span> <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

A major narrative switcheroo in Air Force One <\/em>is the sequence in which you think Ford evacuates the plane (his<\/em> plane!) via an emergency pod. That\u2019s exactly what Donald Pleasence did as a movie president when his Air Force One was hijacked by terrorists in John Carpenter\u2019s Escape From New York<\/em>, a film shot in 1980, when Jimmy Carter was still in the White House\u2014not exactly a period known for luxuriating in U.S. muscle.<\/p>\n

Hollywood\u2019s representation of U.S. presidents certainly changed during the Reagan-Rambo years. A year before Air Force One <\/em>came Independence Day<\/em>, in which Earth gets pummeled by space invaders but eventually rallies once the president of the United States, played by Bill Pullman, formulates a plan.<\/p>\n

Pullman\u2019s president\u2019s famous speech<\/a>, in which he says the name of the movie, is like Henry V at Agincourt put through the stupid machine but an even better moment comes when other nations learn that the United States is ready to suit up and kick interplanetary butt.<\/p>\n

More recent examples of a battle-ready POTUS are White House Down<\/em> (from the same director as Independence Day<\/em>, Roland Emmerich; he and Wolfgang Petersen are both German) and Olympus Has Fallen<\/em>, both released in 2013. In each film, the White House itself is overrun by baddies, and the president has to fight back. These films are a smidge <\/em>more realistic, in that the leader of the free world doesn\u2019t go at it alone\u2014in White House Down<\/em>, Jaime Foxx\u2019s President Sawyer is aided by Channing Tatum, a Secret Service agent named John Cale. Similarly, in Olympus Has Fallen<\/em>, Aaron Eckhart (President Asher) follows the lead of Gerard Butler, a Secret Service agent named Mike Banning.<\/p>\n

Somehow Banning came back for two more movies, London Has Fallen <\/em>(fighting baddies with Asher when a British prime minister\u2019s funeral comes under attack) and Angel Has Fallen <\/em>(fighting different baddies in a manner far too complicated to get into right now).<\/p>\n


\n \"Viola
\n <\/span>
Viola Davis in G20.<\/figcaption>

Viola Davis in G20<\/em>.Prime Video<\/span> <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Even though these movies are more about the Secret Service guy, the presidents hold their own. This year, that trend was reversed for G20<\/a><\/em>, a marvelous new entry in the canon starring Viola Davis as an Iraq War vet-turned-politician who has been elected president. At her first G-20 summit, she has to personally save civilization by mowing down murderous Australian bitcoin bro terrorists. Davis going full Stallone is something of a glorious sight, and the action sequences are quite entertaining. When most of the world\u2019s leaders are taken hostage, she scurries away with a Secret Service dude (an old war buddy); the flabby U.K. prime minister; the very sharp South Korean first lady; and the head of the International Monetary Fund, a feisty, diminutive Italian woman. But Davis quickly takes charge and ultimately saves the day. (As in Heads of State<\/em>, her job includes dangling out of a helicopter; this prerequisite somehow rarely comes up at town hall debates.)<\/p>\n

Looking at the list of titles here, one does get a sense that Hollywood likes to repeat itself. What is it about U.S. culture that yearns for an action hero president? They don\u2019t, for example, make these movies in France. I suppose one could say it\u2019s the good old \u201cfrontier spirit,\u201d as mythological as that might be, imprinted on the country\u2019s self-identity; after all, George Washington was a working general who beat the snot out of the redcoats. Sure, being book smart is OK, but can you swim 4 miles with a wounded fellow soldier on your back? That\u2019s what really counts. In fact, that specific feat is one of the acts of valor seen in maybe the weirdest presidential action picture of them all, PT 109<\/em>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Starring Cliff Robertson and released in June 1963\u2014when John F. Kennedy was president and a year away from what would have been his reelection campaign\u2014PT 109<\/em> details the derring-do of a young, Harvard-educated lieutenant in the U.S. Navy who transformed a bucket of bolts into a sturdy ship; helped save pinned-down U.S. soldiers on a Pacific island; and then miraculously kept nearly all of his crew safe after getting rammed by a Japanese destroyer. That lieutenant\u2019s name was John F. Kennedy.<\/p>\n

Kennedy was more involved in the making of his own hagiography than you might think. He personally approved Robertson for the role and had a wartime friend act as a liaison between the movie studio and the White House. (He also demanded profits go to surviving family members of the actual PT 109.)<\/p>\n


\n \"Cliff
\n <\/span>
Cliff Robertson in PT109.<\/figcaption>

Cliff Robertson in PT 109<\/em>.IMDB<\/span> <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

It\u2019s not a great movie, but it\u2019s a fascinating one. Robertson\u2019s performance is eerily sunny\u2014no matter how rotten his situation is, he doesn\u2019t stop smiling. There are also a surprising number of weird cameos: Future sitcom star Normal Fell showing up certainly shatters the illusion of gravitas, and it\u2019s wild to see future Star Trek <\/em>star George Takei at the helm of the threatening Japanese destroyer. (That\u2019s the same crew position he\u2019d have on the USS Enterprise <\/em>serving the JFK-esque James T. Kirk.)<\/p>\n

Former Sen. John McCain\u2019s time in Vietnam, a little more recent, was made into a direct-to-basic-cable film in 2005 called Faith of My Fathers<\/em>. It certainly lacked the same technicolor punch as PT 109<\/em>, but it still got made near the peak of his political relevance.<\/p>\n

\n This article is featured in the FP Weekend newsletter, a curation of our best book reviews, deep dives, and other reads that take a step back from the drumbeat of the news. Get the lineup directly every Saturday. <\/h2>\n<\/p>\n