G20 is a curious movie. There are plenty of these kinds of movies to be found dotting the landscape of straight-to-DVD action vehicles starring the likes of, say, Casper Van Dien or Dolph Lungren. Junky action movies can be their own pleasure, guilty or otherwise. What I wouldn’t expect was watching one of these kinds of movies with an actress the caliber of Viola Davis, four-time Academy Award nominee. The movie portrays Davis as America’s president (if only …sigh…) attending the annual G20 global convention of world leaders when it’s taken over by terrorists. The lead terrorist (Antony Starr, The Boys) has a master plan to appeal to the citizens of the world to divest their money from banks and invest entirely in crypto currency. That’s right, dear reader, the bad guy has a crypto scheme. I suppose the movie is meant to emulate a Die Hard-in-a formula, or more accurately an Air Force One-in-a formula since that movie also followed a cornered president acting as an avenging lone wolf. The setup is fine, it’s the execution that is shoddy and poorly developed, with the limitations of the budget that was still obviously so much bigger than almost any other direct-to-DVD action thriller. The hide-and-seek setup where we watch a character outfox and pick off the bad guys is a winning scenario, but G20 doesn’t bother to derive engaging and surprising set pieces. Each scene of characters running, fighting, or exchanging gunfire is much like the last. The president even has a pair of tech-savvy kids, and a useless husband (sorry Anthony Anderson), who are lackluster additions, serving as tools to be threatened. If you had cut out Davis and replaced her with, say, Antony Starr, this movie wouldn’t be much different from the tide of mediocre action-thrillers meant to pass the time. Davis is a credited producer on this movie, which means she is the star because she wanted to be an action hero. That’s an admirable goal but an actress of her ability shouldn’t have settled for interchangeable genre dreck.

Nate’s Grade: C