G20 plus Short Takes on some other cinematic topics

Don't Mess With the Prez

 Reviews and Comments by Ken Burke

I invite you to join me on a regular basis to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I’ll refer to as either the CCAL (Collective Critics at Large) if they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative.  However, due to COVID concerns I’m mostly addressing streaming options with limited visits to theaters, where I don’t think I’ve missed much anyway, though better options may be coming soon.  (Note: Anything in bold blue [some may look near purple] is a link to something more in the review.)

My reviews’ premise: “You can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.”

(from "Garden Party" by Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band, 1972 album of the song’s name)

                  G20 (Patricia Riggen)   rated  R  108 min.

Here’s the trailer:

      (Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge its size; 

      activate the same button or use “esc” keyboard key to return to normal.)

If you can abide plot spoilers read on, but this blog’s intended for those who’ve seen the film or want to save some $ (as well as recognizing those readers like me who just aren’t that tech-savvy).  To help any of you who want to learn more details yet avoid these all-important plot-reveals I’ll identify any give-away sentences/sentence-clusters with colors plus arrows: 

⇒The first and last words will be noted with arrows and red.⇐ OK, now continue on if you prefer.

WHAT HAPPENS: Years ago during the U.S. invasion of Iraq (I’d better be more careful; a statement like that could get me deported, maybe I should say “the U.S. liberation of Iraq”—and I promise [at age 77] never to enroll at Harvard U.) Danielle Sutton (Viola Davis) was there in the Army, saved a young child from a building about to explode, was photographed doing that with the shot on the cover of a major new magazine, propelling her into a political career that’s resulted in her recent election as U.S. President, even though with all the ongoing problems she must confront the one closest to home is the rebellious behavior of her 17-year-old daughter, Serena (Marsai Martin), whose recent antics have gone Internet viral so Pres. Sutton decides to take her whole family—including husband Derek (Anthony Anderson) and more-accommodating son Demetrius (Christopher Farrar) with her on her trip to South Africa to attend the G20 meeting of heads of major nations, where Sutton and Treasury Secretary Joanna Worth (Elizabeth Marvel)—long-time friend of Sutton but apparently was a rival in that recent election (Could this be a subtle reference to Kamala Harris and Hilary Clinton?)—will present a plan to help sub-Saharan farmers get access to digital currency.

 

 At the same time, Australian Special Forces Corporal Edward Rutledge (Antony Starr) and his minions manage to steal a $70 million cryptocurrency wallet, then they’re also on their way to Cape Town where they infiltrate the G20 meeting, kill the various security guards, take the world leaders hostage even as Sutton and her old military pal/now head of her Secret Service detail, Agent Manny Ruiz (Ramón Rodriguez), slip away along with UK Prime Minister Oliver Everett (Douglas Hodge), head of the International Monetary Fund Elena Romano (Sabrina Impacciatore), and South Korea First Lady Han Min-Seo (MeeWha Alana Lee), even as Derek gets word of the invasion, takes the kids to temporary safety.  Rutledge claims he's not a terrorist but a savior out to save the world from greedy leaders, then forces his hostages to cooperate in making AI videos in which they seem to tell their citizens to put all of their money into cryptocurrency, vastly enriching blatant hypocrite Rutledge.

Showing her cyber-skills, Serena manages to get a message with the truth of all this to U.S. VP Harold Mosely (Clark Gregg), but turncoat Secret Service Agent Darden (John Hoogenakker)  captures Derek.  To force Danielle to turn herself in, Rutledge kills Australian Prime Minister Lowe (Colin Moss) and South Korean President Lee Young-Ho (Joseph Steven Yang), then threatens Derek.  ⇒In the ongoing action melees (in which Sutton shows off her hand-to-hand combat skills), Ruiz kills Darden, South African agents posing as hotel staff, Melokuhle (Theo Bongani Ndyalvane) and Lesedi (Noxolo Diamini), rescue Serena and Demetrius, but Rutledge (angry that he was in Iraq along with Sutton, but a couple of his mates were killed by an American bomb while she became a celebrated icon) forces Sutton to make another deepfake video that nets him an additional $150 billion while wrecking the U.S. economy, but he’s stabbed by Han, drops his wallet and flees, recapturing Serena even as Sutton realizes her seeming-friend Worth was part of this plot.  In the climatic scene, Sutton and Rutledge fight on the hotel roof, then in his helicopter, from where she pushes him to his death.  Worth is arrested, Sutton’s farmers plan is adopted by the G20, Danielle and family return home.  (I’m not really sure what happens with all of the global ruined economies, but I guess somehow they’re restored, as the crypto wallet was lost during the ending struggle.)⇐

SO WHAT? Well, my recent, frequently-stated goal of moving on to 2025 releases has been a bit difficult lately given what I’ve found available on streaming, so when I saw this offering I was intrigued by the idea of a(n actual) kick-ass President, especially a Black woman (although I’d see Michele Obama in such a role in the real world, more so than Ms. Harris), especially one played by the grand thespian, Viola Davis.  The basic premise still held up for me throughout most of the movie, given how bold deadly terrorists have become in our reality (the recent firebombing of the Pennsylvania Governor's home as one horrid example) where such a planned kidnapping of world leaders, either singularly or in such a group, seems to be not-much-of-a-fictional stretch, but once the premise is in place the plot direction is easily predictable, just as the mounting interpersonal crises feel like old familiar ploys to keep the tension at a constant level until the conflicts are resolved (in a rather unspectacular fashion, given all of the pressures previously built up), so I’d say this works as an adrenalin-enhancer of escapist fare but doesn’t really take us much beyond a cluster of familiar expectations (including teen Serena finally becoming more appreciative, respectful of Mom).

 

 Possibly the most interesting things about it are the (I’m sure) unintended connections to the world we’re living in while watching this fictional display which was conceived back in 2022, postponed during the 2023 SAG-AFTRA actors’ strike, shot in early 2024, long before the last U.S. elections.  For one, an actual G20 meeting scheduled in South Africa for November 2025 (I don’t know if President Trump intends to attend; it may depend on the state of global economies at that point with these looming, expanding tariff wars set to happen by this summer).  Then there’s the situation with horrible happenings in South Africa, which could be seen as an allusion to the South African horror of Elon Musk working with Trump to undermine—if not outright destroy—the functioning of the federal government with all those layoffs and policy dismissals.  There’s also the situation of the growing allure (at least for the already-rich) of cryptocurrency which Trump's already exploited for personal gain.  One other note about G20’s content is the implied danger of deepfake audio/video in swaying a gullible population to think and act in manners useful to the perpetrators, a reality we’ve also seen in action in some recent elections.  So, ultimately, there’s more to this movie than who gets shot when, but if that’s all you desire right now for entertainment there is plenty of that as well.

 BOTTOM LINE FINAL COMMENTS: If you do think you’d enjoy G20 (or just want to see Davis in physical action in addition to her usual verbal command of the screen) you won’t have to leave home to find it because it’s available only on streaming where it’s free to Amazon Prime Video subscribers (if not, you can take advantage of a 30-day free offer, then continue if you like for $8.99 a month), but I can’t say the OCCU will be much help in encouraging you to do so as the Rotten Tomatoes positive reviews are 57% while the Metacritic average score is slightly lower at 53%.  Perhaps Stephanie Zacharek of TIME can best speak for those who want more form this movie: “Someday we really will have a Black woman president, or at least a return to intelligent, sensible leadership. Until that happens, we’ll have to make do with the wish-fulfilment fantasy of G20, a movie that does little more than tick off a selection of action-movie boxes—though some of them are at least ticked off with a satisfying click. […] But even though G20 presents itself as a fun, throwaway action movie, it's far too ponderous for its own good. Davis makes it clear that Danielle is giving her all to save democracy and her family; she’s just not having any fun doing it. […] That’s when you realize what a shame it is that G20—which is available to stream on Prime Video—isn’t playing in theaters. To watch Davis whack that goon is deeply cathartic, but it would be even more galvanizing to share it with an audience. United we stand, divided we fall. Maybe that goes for the way we watch movies, too.”  Zacharek's ultimately disappointed, despite offering some support.  

 

 Still, there are others such as Jordan Hoffman of Entertainment Weekly who counters with praise, even of a backhanded-nature: “G20 is a movie that is so far-fetched that only a true stick in the mud would complain about its lack of realism. (For starters, the markets would freeze if 20 world leaders were kidnapped, just to avoid the economic turmoil that our crypto jerks want.) But if you do not find yourself hootin’ and hollerin’ at Viola Davis — excuse me, President Viola Davis — packing automatic weapons, tossing grenades, and charging into a helicopter, well, your loyalty to good, idiotic fun might be questioned.”  You can make your own choice about seeing G20 or not (I’m more inclined toward yes than no), but in the meantime I’ll finish this with my usual tactic of a Musical Metaphor, this time the Jimi Hendrix version of “The Star-Spangled Banner” at https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=sjzZh6-h9fM, from the 1969 Woodstock Music Festival as captured in the marvelous Woodstock documentary (Michael Wadleigh, 1970) as it mirrors this movie in celebrating the U.S.A. (somewhat), but in a loud, aggressive manner intended in the music as an anti-war critique ("Taps") even as such violence is celebrated (when done by the right people, surely) in G20.

              

SHORT TAKES

                 

Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:

 

One option for your consideration: (1) IMDb's Five Things to Watch on the week of 4/14/2025.

 

We encourage you to visit the Summary of Two Guys Reviews for our past posts* (scroll to the bottom of this Summary page to see additional info about your wacky critic, Ken Burke, along with contact info and a great retrospective song list).  Overall notations for this blog—including Internet formatting craziness beyond our control—may be found at our Two Guys in the Dark homepage.  If you’d like to Like us on Facebook (yes?) please visit our Facebook page.  We appreciate your support whenever and however you can offer it unto us!  Please also note that to Post a Comment below about our reviews you need to have either a Google account (which you can easily get at https://accounts.google.com/NewAccount if you need to sign up) or other sign-in identification from the pull-down menu below before you preview or post.  You can also leave comments at our Facebook page, although you may have to somehow register with us there in order to comment (FB procedures: frequently perplexing mysteries for us aged farts).

 

*Please ignore previous warnings about a “dead link” to our Summary page because the problem’s been manually fixed so that all postings since July 11, 2013 now have the proper functioning link.

 

If you’d rather contact Ken directly rather than leaving a comment here at the blog please 

use my email address of kenburke409@gmail.com—type it directly if the link doesn’t work.

             

OUR POSTINGS PROBABLY LOOK BEST ON THE MOST CURRENT VERSIONS OF MAC OS AND THE SAFARI WEB BROWSER (although Google Chrome usually is decent also); OTHERWISE, BE FOREWARNED THE LAYOUT MAY SEEM MESSY AT TIMES.

            

Finally, for the data-oriented among you, Google stats say over the past month the total unique hits at this site were 11,849.  (As always, we thank all of you for your ongoing support with hopes you’ll continue to be regular readers.)  Below is a snapshot of where those responses have come from within the previous week (appreciation for the unspecified “Others” also visiting Two Guys’ site):

Black Bag plus Short Takes on some other cinematic topics

A Dangerous Game of Whack-A-Mole

Reviews and Comments by Ken Burke

I invite you to join me on a regular basis to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I’ll refer to as either the CCAL (Collective Critics at Large) if they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative.  However, due to COVID concerns I’m mostly addressing streaming options with limited visits to theaters, where I don’t think I’ve missed much anyway, though better options may be coming soon.  (Note: Anything in bold blue [some may look near purple] is a link to something more in the review.)

My reviews’ premise: “You can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.”

(from "Garden Party" by Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band, 1972 album of the song’s name)

 Before we get down to cinematics, though, I want to call your attention to the recent passing away of Melody Rygaard Smith, who, along with me, is a proud 1966 graduate of Ball High, Galveston, TX.  Even though others of our classmates have died in ensuing years, I’m paying tribute now just to Melody because awhile ago she found this "famous" blog which led to Facebook messaging on our lives (and attempted sympathy from me as she faced—with the best strength and peace anyone ever could—the early deaths of her daughter and husband a couple of years ago) and frequent public comments from here about some of these rambling reviews of mine, showing herself to be one of the few people worldwide who I'd truly been able to trust had actually read them.  Sadly for me, her last indication of a Like was for my March 26, 2025 review of Sing Sing, then 2 days later she was gone (which I knew about only from some Facebook posts I’m grateful were shared).  She was a wonderful woman, wife, mother (plus many other  designations as a relative), and nurse, bringing consistent joy to so many others who knew her much better than I did.  If you’d like to read a bit more about Melody, here’s the obituary, along with what she often enjoyed in my reviews, a Musical Metaphor, something I know she'd easily sing along to, the Ball High school song and fight song.  May you now rest in peace, dear friend.

   Black Bag (Steven Soderbergh)   rated R   94 min.

Here’s the trailer:

        (Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge its size; 

        activate the same button or use “esc” keyboard key to return to normal.)

If you can abide plot spoilers read on, but this blog’s intended for those who’ve seen the film or want to save some $ (as well as recognizing those readers like me who just aren’t that tech-savvy).  To help any of you who want to learn more details yet avoid these all-important plot-reveals I’ll identify any give-away sentences/sentence-clusters with colors plus arrows: 

⇒The first and last words will be noted with arrows and red.⇐ OK, now continue on if you prefer.

WHAT HAPPENS: In contemporary London, after a long, well-choreographed tracking shot, we meet a member of a British Intelligence Group, George Woodhouse (Michael Fassbender) who’s told by his boss, Meacham (Gustaf Skarsgård), that a member of his unit, including his wife, Kathryn (Cate Blanchett), has stolen a copy of Severus, a dangerous software that has the capacity to blow up nuclear power plants, causing great destruction, so George has just 1 week to find the mole, retrieve Severus, keep horrible disasters from happening.  His initial strategy is to invite the other 4 members of his team, James Stokes (Regé-Jean Page), who’s just been promoted; Freddie Smalls (Tom Burke), stiff miffed that James got the new status; satellite-imagery specialist Clarissa Dubose (Marisa Abela), who’s currently in a relationship with Freddie; and Dr. Zoe Vaughn (Naomie Harris), an agency psychiatrist currently in a relationship with James.  Unknown to them (but Kathryn’s aware), George has spiked the food with a drug to lower their inhibitions, hoping someone will accidently give away their guilt.  However, all that comes of this is the revelation Freddie’s been cheating on Clarissa so she stabs his hand with a steak knife as the “party” ends.  That same night, Meacham dies at his home of a heart attack while having a drink, a quite-suspicious situation.  Increasing George’s stress, he finds a ticket stub in his bedroom wastebasket for a movie Kathryn claims she hasn’t seen, then she tells him she’s off on a short mission she can’t tell him about (such secrets are kept in the “black bag,” information withheld even from other team members).  After he breaks into her computer to learn she’s in Zurich he browbeats Clarissa to briefly redirect a satellite surveillance so he can watch Kathryn meet with a Russian operative, a move that could prove deadly because that guy’s partner, under constant watch in a safehouse, manages to slip away with the Severus copy, these dissident Russians heading into Eastern Europe to create havoc, kill thousands, with blame going on Putin whom they hope to see overthrown due to a massive uprising.

 To further indict Kathryn into George's escalating suspicions, James tells him she’s used an alias in the past that resulted in £7 million being deposited in a Swiss account under her secret name, then Freddie tells her about George’s concerns about his wife, which leads her to take action using Clarissa to track the Russians while she arranged for a CIA colleague to kill them with a drone as she’s understood Brit agency head, Arthur Stieglitz (Pierce Brosnan), allowed the Severus clone to escape in order to bring about Putin’s downfall.  By now George and Kathryn have come to trust each other so they bring the other 4 to another dinner party (although by now James has broken up with Zoe), where there is no dinner just a gun on the table with Kathryn’s demand anyone who lies will be shot.  ⇒As tensions progress we learn Zoe and Freddie had an affair, James was working with Stieglitz to leak Severus while Zoe and Freddie were trying us use Kathryn to stop it.  James grabs the gun, admits his guilt and that he poisoned Meacham, tries to shoot George, but the gun just has blanks.  Kathryn’s got a loaded pistol, though, kills James, warns the others to never again interfere with her marriage, then later gives a similar ultimatum to Stieglitz.  Kathryn and George reconnect in the bedroom where she joyfully says the £7 million is still available to her in Zurich.⇐

SO WHAT? When I became aware of this film being available on streaming I was attracted to it immediately for 4 reasons: (1) Soderbergh, (2) Fassbender, (3) Blanchett, and (4) I’ve been saying for the last few weeks how I’m ready to get past reviewing holdovers from 2024, move on to 2025 releases, yet nothing I was aware of in current streaming was attracting me at the same level as a bunch of 2024 4-stars catchups so I was delighted to find something new (just recently opened in theaters, although I’ve read an article about theater owners upset studios are moving their products to streaming before the movie houses have enough time to bring in their own needed profits) so quickly available to virus-aloof me, and, overall, I was pleased with what I saw although I did find it difficult to follow at times, leading to my long-considered 3½ stars-decision.  Along those lines, whenever you’re ready to deal with Spoilers, I’ll refer you to an in-depth analysis of Black Bag (11:33 [ad interrupts at about 3:50]) where the analyst notes similarities to Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Tomas Alfredson, 2011)—including main characters named George and the desperate need to find the mole within a supposedly-secure team—a film which provided me with one of the first reviews for this blog back on January 6, 2012 (with enough verbiage to choke a horse, poorly broken up in those early days with adequate photos; sorry, but hopefully the comments still hold up) where it also got 3½ stars, even though like with Black Bag I enjoyed it quite a bit; however, as with this current story I felt the structure was frequently a bit difficult to make sense of.*

 

*As I noted in an addition to that long-ago review of Tinker …, one of the problems I had with it was no fault of the film at all but rather poor sound reproduction quality in the theater where I saw it with my wife, Nina, and our regular viewing companion, with all of us having trouble following the plot but still—maybe by osmosis—enjoying what we saw.  Later, Nina and I watched it again in another theater, followed the dialogue much better so I was faced with the challenge of amending my rating.  Even at that early stage of the blog, though, I resolved never to do that because if I decided to reconsider my rating in any one review I’d have to, in all fairness, keep doing that for any/all of them.

 Yes, I know these are more mystery narratives than spy thrillers (like the James Bond intense-action movies, as change is illustrated here by former-Bond Brosnan in a relatively-quiet supervisory role rather than engaging directly in field-action [also, Harris was Moneypenny in recent Bond episodes]) so we’re supposed to be kept off-guard for as long as possible, even when the suspects group is narrowed for us by James admitting to George agents other than Kathryn used that long-ago alias.  It is interesting to try to guess who’s lying and what to believe about the events presented, along with enjoying the expected top-quality acting from the leads, marvelous direction from Soderbergh, but I had to work harder than I preferred in keeping up with it, so maybe, to paraphrase Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar (1599),  the fault (“dear Brutus”) is once again not with the(se) stars but with (my)self.

BOTTOM LINE FINAL COMMENTS: As noted above, Black Bag hasn’t been in circulation very long, opening on March 14, 2025 in domestic (U.S.-Canada) theaters (where it’s grossed $21 million, $35 million worldwide, so far), then it became available on streaming last weekend, where you can rent it for $19.99 from Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV+.  The CCAL’s enthusiastically ready for you to do so with the Rotten Tomatoes positive reviews at 96%, the Metacritic average score at 85%, so maybe you’d better listen to them even more so than me (although I do encourage seeing Black Bag), like the always-dependable James Berardinelli of REELVIEWS, 3½ of 4 stars, offering comments such as: "Black Bag belongs on an Endangered Species list - a spy thriller that relabels on uncovering motivations and unraveling narrative knots to generate suspense. There's nary a car chase to be found nor a shootout to dodge during the course of this lean yarn from director Steven Soderbergh and his recent collaborator, screenwriter David Koepp (they also worked together on Kimi and Presence). More than anything, Black Bag requires attentiveness from its viewers. It demands a level of mental engagement audiences might no longer be accustomed to in a theatrical environment where distracted viewing has become the norm."  Yet, surely you say, there must be some negative reactions, yet they were hard to find so I'll settle for this from previously-unknown-to-me-but-quite-erudite Catherine Springer, who's barely less supportive than me with her 3 of 5 stars: “Black Bag really should be more fun than it is. There are moments when the black comedy that I think it’s intending to be slips through, but, for the most part, it plays flat and super-serious, and just doesn’t work. It tries (not too hard) to be sexy, it tries (not too hard) to be a spy film, and it tries (not too hard) to be a mystery, but it doesn’t work fully on any level. In fact, the big ending plays more like Agatha Christie than James Bond, and doesn’t earn the abrupt ending that seems to come out of nowhere.”  Overall, I'm more in harmony with Springer.  

 

 Now, as I conclude, let’s see if you’re in agreement with me on my choice of a Musical Metaphor, Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight” (the 8^th time I’ve used this; I must have encountered some unsavory characters over the years of these reviews; it’s on his 1981 solo debut Face Value album) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ht2XF2yOj34, due to the absolute distain a team member has for the guilty party with “Well, if you told me you were drowning / I would not lend a hand” notable when the corpse of that guilty one is dumped into the river, because “It’s all been a pack of lies.”  Whatever you might think of this often-mesmerizing film, I think you’ll enjoy Mr. Collins' dynamics.  

            

SHORT TAKES

                 

Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:

 

Some options for your consideration: (1) What's new on Netflix in April 2025; (2) What's new on Disney+ in April 2025; (3) What's new on Max in April 2025; (4) What's new on Hulu in April 2025; (5) IMDb's 5 Things to Watch on the week of April 6, 2025 (maybe?); (6) 13 roughly 90 min. movies for when you're short on time (and, seemingly, desperate for something to watch).

 

We encourage you to visit the Summary of Two Guys Reviews for our past posts* (scroll to the bottom of this Summary page to see additional info about your wacky critic, Ken Burke, along with contact info and a great retrospective song list).  Overall notations for this blog—including Internet formatting craziness beyond our control—may be found at our Two Guys in the Dark homepage.  If you’d like to Like us on Facebook (yes?) please visit our Facebook page.  We appreciate your support whenever and however you can offer it unto us!  Please also note that to Post a Comment below about our reviews you need to have either a Google account (which you can easily get at https://accounts.google.com/NewAccount if you need to sign up) or other sign-in identification from the pull-down menu below before you preview or post.  You can also leave comments at our Facebook page, although you may have to somehow register with us there in order to comment (FB procedures: frequently perplexing mysteries for us aged farts).

 

*Please ignore previous warnings about a “dead link” to our Summary page because the problem’s been manually fixed so that all postings since July 11, 2013 now have the proper functioning link.

 

If you’d rather contact Ken directly rather than leaving a comment here at the blog please 

use my email address of kenburke409@gmail.com—type it directly if the link doesn’t work.

          

OUR POSTINGS PROBABLY LOOK BEST ON THE MOST CURRENT VERSIONS OF MAC OS AND THE SAFARI WEB BROWSER (although Google Chrome usually is decent also); OTHERWISE, BE FOREWARNED THE LAYOUT MAY SEEM MESSY AT TIMES.

            

Finally, for the data-oriented among you, Google stats say over the past month the total unique hits at this site were 11,849.  (As always, we thank all of you for your ongoing support with our hopes you’ll continue to be regular readers.)  Below is a snapshot of where those responses have come from within the previous week (appreciation for the unspecified “Others” also visiting Two Guys’ site):