It is a truth universally acknowledged that there are only a few great films about international politics. The best of them, like “The Godfather,” are more allegorical than literal. Despite the high stakes, few filmmakers know how to make global tensions palpable to most viewers. There are exceptions, of course. “Dr. Strangelove” is a classic, as is “The Hunt for Red October.” Since the end of the Cold War, however, most films that attempt to portray important IR themes usually fall well short.
Unfortunately, the newly released “G20,” starring Oscar-winning luminary Viola Davis, is no exception to this rule. Davis plays Danielle Sutton, the U.S. president and Army veteran, who travels to Cape Town, South Africa, for the Group of Twenty summit that gives the film its name. There she plans to secure an agreement for her ambitious plan to use a central bank digital currency, or CBDC, to end global poverty. But nefarious villains converging on the G20 summit have other ideas.
The plot of “G20” could best be summarized as “Die Hard,” but at a global summit—the kind of absurd movie premise in which the U.S. president’s biggest headache is neither international diplomacy nor domestic politics, but a rebellious teenage daughter. Unsurprisingly, the reviews have been pretty mediocre, with one critic asking flat-out, “Is there value in trash like G20?”