‘Back In Action’ Review: Jamie Foxx And Cameron Diaz Reunite For Zany And Unapologetically Over- The-Top Spy Comedy

If Back In Action serves for no other reason than to be the movie that finally brought Cameron Diaz back in action making movies, than it was worth it.

Yes, this spy action comedy feels derivative as we have seen from Mr. And Mrs. Smith to Jason Bourne (as the film itself references), and as recently as Mark Wahlberg’s Family Plan which saw his character on the run with his unsuspecting family when his past as a secret assassin is outed. In Back In Action, it is longtime married couple Matt (Jamie Foxx) and Emily (Diaz) whose long-ago past as super spies comes home to roost — literally — as their suburban cover and happy family life with their two kids is disrupted when a key final job they did 15 years earlier comes back to haunt them. It brings them out of “retirement” on a mission to keep a certain weapon out of the wrong hands.

Actually the Netflix movie, one of those super-expensive globetrotting action flicks streamers seem to love these days, starts out with a sequence even James Bond would find over the top: a flashback to Matt and Emily’s final mission that finds them in manic action and aboard a plane that careens out of control, tears in half, and still enables them to triumph as it heads toward certain total destruction. Just another day on the job for them.

Cut to present day and their serene family life, a spy past completely unknown to their kids, Alice (McKenna Roberts) and Leo (Rylan Jackson), until circumstances involving them bring out their secret and their flight back to England, where Emily’s mother Ginny (Glenn Close) lives on a vast estate. Emily wants nothing to do with this vivacious grandma in the same way Alice wants nothing to do with Emily, but when Matt confesses he hid the still-desired weapon in question at Ginny’s mansion, they have to go back to try and find it. Turns out Ginny is shacked up with the much younger and loony Nigel (British comic Jamie Demtriou), with their visible affection a distraction for all, and as we learn, a past of her own as a super spy that soon comes into play again.

Also in the mix in the impressive cast is Andrew Scott as Agent Baron, an antagonist to Matt and Emily and someone whose presence is a bit of an enigma. There is also Kyle Chandler as Chuck, their old boss at the CIA and the one who brings them to the aforementioned back in action. When you have supporting players on the level of Scott and Chandler you know they are in this for more than perfunctory duties, but to say more would give spoilers to a plot more interested in dizzying action sequences and stunts than anything resembling reality. And so what? That is where the fun comes in, just as it did in Netflix’s recent big hit Carry-On. In other words, just go with it. The stars are having fun, so why shouldn’t we too. It is the kind of movie that can play globally, and you know Netflix loves that.

Foxx lured his Any Given Sunday (1999) and Annie (2014) co-star Diaz out of retirement and it is like she never left. Always adept at this kind of comedy action thing, Diaz has not missed a beat and does most of her stunts, as does Foxx. Here’s hoping she is enticed to do more movies. I have missed her. As for Foxx, this is the film he was making when he had a sudden medical emergency, later revealed as a stroke of some very serious sort. Apparently it happened as the film was nearing completion because he is operating at full-tilt here in a role requiring lots of physicality. Close is lots of fun as this wacky senior Brit, and Demeriou gets to deliver much of the comic relief in his fish-out-of-water role. Chandler and Scott deliver exactly what they are asked to do, and both of the kids are refreshingly authentic (well, as much as they can be in these circumstances).

Director Seth Gordon (Horrible Bosses) proves adept at handling the many big set-pieces that keep this thing rocking, and his script with Brendan O’Brien does offer some genuine laughs along the way in a movie no one should take seriously.

Producers are Peter Chernin, Jenno Topping, Sharla Sumpter Bridgett, Beau Bauman and Gordon.

Title: Back In Action
Distributor: Netflix
Release date: January 17, 2025 (streaming)
Director: Seth Gordon
Screenwriters: Seth Gordon and Brendan O’ Brien
Cast: Jamie Foxx, Cameron Diaz, Andrew Scott, Kyle Chandler, Glenn Close, Jamie Demetriou, McKenna Roberts, Rylan Jackson
Rating: PG-13
Running itme: 1 hr 54 mins