She is, if you’ve seen the trailer for Prime Video’s latest actioner, The Lady in Red. But, while there’s little in the way of romance in G20, which landed on the streamer today (Thursday, April 10), Viola Davis is all too conspicuous as an American president who fights back in spectacular style when she and her family are threatened by terrorists.
Her battle fatigues? A vibrant red dress – with an alteration or two.
The Oscar-winning actor plays fictional US President Danielle Sutton in this tense, rollercoaster ride. In South Africa, alongside her fellow world leaders for the G20 summit, she finds herself the number one target for terrorists when the gathering comes under siege. And she brings all her leadership qualities and military training to the table when it comes to putting her enemies in their place, as well as saving the other heads of government, her country and, most importantly of all, her family.
Of course, we’re not unused to the occasional POTUS going into battle Die Hard style. Air Force One (1997) had Harrison Ford as a heroic president up against terrorist hijackers on his plane. About ten years later came White House Down, with president Jamie Foxx under attack from the bad guys, and president Morgan Freeman was in a similar position in Olympus Has Fallen.
But, in both instances, the one and only security officer who could help them was by their side – respectively Channing Tatum and Gerard Butler. Davis, though, is having none of that. She takes on her enemies single-handedly, and it looks like a whole heap of fun.
Ferocious gun battles, rescuing hostages, punch-ups in the kitchen and gravity-defying moments in helicopters – they’re all in a long day’s work for this president, even if it’s not immediately the sort of role you’d associate with Davis.
An EGOT winner, she took the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her heartbreaking performance in Fences (2016), as well as winning plaudits for The Help (2011), Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (2020) and Doubt (2008). All powerful, dramatic films in their individual ways, but a long way from the shoot-em-up style of G20.
Yet, at the film’s London premiere, she told The Times: “I don’t think every movie you do has to be considered for an Academy Award.”
Maybe she gave us a hint a few years ago of what was to come. In The Woman King (2022), she was truly awesome as formidable but battle-weary general Nanisca, the leader of an all-woman army in West Africa, charged with protecting their king.
The fight sequences and action in general were breathtaking, but the film still allowed the impressive cast, which also included John Boyega, Lashana Lynch and Shiela Atim, to flesh out their characters. And we all saw a whole new side to Davis.
In the same year, the actor also made an early visit to the White House, this time in TV docudrama, The First Lady, when she played Michelle Obama.
A piece of action entertainment it most certainly is, but G20 still manages to break some new ground. There’s been plenty of fictional first ladies in movies, but women presidents are harder to come by and Davis’s no-holds-barred attitude is most definitely a first.
That said, in Long Shot (2019), we saw a woman behind the desk in the Oval Office who perhaps had the potential to be in the same mode. OK, Charlotte Field isn’t inaugurated until towards the end of the movie, but she’s played by somebody who carved out a niche for herself by going mano a mano with countless adversaries. In Atomic Blonde (2017) and The Old Guard (2020), Charlize Theron became indelibly associated with action movies and both films now have sequels on the way.
But Davis has brought us a big screen woman POTUS like no other – strong, fierce and afraid of nothing and nobody. A real action hero president. Here’s hoping she gets a second term!
G20 is on Prime Video worldwide now.
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