Back In Action Review

Back In Action. (L to R) Cameron Diaz as Emily and Jamie Foxx as Matt in Back In Action. Cr. John Wilson/Netflix © 2024.
It’s a pedestrian title – one that’s been used before – but the pun in Back In Action is inescapable. This is Cameron Diaz’s comeback movie. After an eleven-year retirement following Annie (2014), she is literally back in action and working alongside her friend and Annie co-star, Jamie Foxx, who apparently had been begging her to act in another movie with him. He’s got his wish. But have we?
The two play a married couple, living the cosy, suburban life with their teenage children, but what the kids don’t realise is that Mum and Dad have a secret. You’ve heard the one about the children who discover their parents used to be spies? Of course, you have, you’ve seen it as well – and here it is again. Initially, we see Foxx and Diaz on their final mission as CIA agents, when they’re trying to track down an all-powerful gizmo known as The Key and, while it slips through their hands, the others on its trail are convinced they still have it. So the couple has to go off-grid, settle down to have kids, and become Mr and Mrs Suburbia. Fifteen years hence, they follow their teenage daughter to a nightclub, get involved in a fracas which is – inevitably – filmed and their cover is blown. The Key still hasn’t been found, so they go on the run to keep their kids safe while trying to find the gadget and work out who’s masterminding the bad guys who are so desperate to get their hands on it.
Let’s be honest. Netflix doesn’t have the best of reps when it comes to actioners, with or without some humour thrown in. They pull in the viewers but last year saw just two of their homegrown efforts getting the thumbs up from critics and audiences alike. Richard Linklater’s gloriously audacious Hit Man was the start of the rise of Glenn Powell, while Jeremy Saulnier’s heart-pumping Rebel Ridge marked a real breakthrough for Aaron Pierre. Aside from that, the rest were formulaic, short on originality and thrills but with that crucial handful of big names to attract the viewers. This might be their first offering of 2025 but, in truth, little or nothing has changed. And, popular though Diaz was – and still is, even after more than a decade – it’s not the most auspicious of returns. The set-up follows a well-trodden path, yet director Seth Gordon can’t stick to it, so the result is a film that doesn’t really know what it wants to be. It constantly goes after the laughs, playing on the on-screen charm of its two stars, but the dialogue simply isn’t sharp enough and there’s also a strong sense of most of the action sequences having been lifted from the same manual as the plot.
Diaz and Foxx aren’t the only familiar faces in the film. Their line-up of co-stars is impressive but they all have one thing in common. They deserve better. Humourless MI6 agent Andrew Scott looks like he’s desperate for the whole thing to be over, Kyle Chandler tries to inject some energy into his character but is hampered by the script. And then there’s Glenn Close. In yet another disappointing role since The Wife (2018), she sports a posh English accent which sounds like manicured nails scraping a blackboard. It can only be a matter of time before we get a reminder of how good an actor she really is but, sad to say, this isn’t it. There is a hint, however, that Diaz could be aiming for a new, Atomic Blonde-esque image: she gives as good as she gets when it comes to kicking ass, making sure that all the action isn’t left to Foxx. But, while it’s good to see her back, however, she will need to choose better vehicles than this to re-establish herself on our screens.
★★
On Netflix from 17 January / Cameron Diaz, Jamie Foxx, Andrew Scott, Kyle Chandler, Glenn Close, Jamie Demetriou, McKenna Roberts, Rylan Jackson / Dir: Seth Gordon / Netflix
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