Back in Action (2025)

 

Back in Action (2025)

5/10

Starring

Jamie Foxx

Cameron Diaz

Andrew Scott

Kyle Chandler

 

Directed by Seth Gordon

 

 

Back in Action is Cameron Diaz’s return to acting after taking a really long hiatus of over a decade. Her last movie role was in 2014.

Now, the movie isn’t that great, but the fact that I can sit through it and not lose my mind is why I can give it a 5 and not a 3. The movie has so many issues and so many problems, but the dynamics between Jamie Foxx and Cameron Diaz work. The problem is everything else fails to make sense.

There’s no way you’re in a plane that’s about to crash, and you’re still fighting.

There’s no way you break into the mansion of an agent and then decide that the best course of action when you have the upper hand is to knock them out and take their children as hostages.

What was your plan when you had the upper hand?

Did you fancy them chasing after you?

Here’s the plot: Matt (Foxx) and Emily (Diaz) are agents who work for the CIA. They’ve been working together for a while and are in a relationship. Emily finds out she’s pregnant while they’re on a mission to steal a device from the bad guy (15 years ago).

They steal the device, and on their way to their safehouse, the plane crew tries to kill them. Turns out someone has sold them out. Here’s where another loose end comes out in the movie, and it seems there’s a cart-before-the-horse issue there.

Anyway, the plane is about to crash, and Emily saves Matt. They survive and decide to live their life underground. The movie skips 15 years to the present day. We don’t know how they manage to get money or build a life, but they’re living under the radar as parents to two children. One incident with their elder fourteen-year-old, and they find themselves on the internet.

Now, the bad guys know where they are and are coming after them. Matt and Emily have hidden their old lives from their children all these years, so now everything is bubbling to the surface. They’re being chased, and they need to protect themselves and their children.

The movie has a lot of effects, and the fight choreography isn’t bad in my view because I’ve seen worse. The use of stunts to make the fights seem smoother is well done, and the variety of destinations used is also well done.

The problem is how easy the story makes things look and how it creates a bottleneck, only to wriggle itself out of it without thinking far ahead. The movie plays like the writers didn’t believe you could read through a bad idea and change it. I think the director also failed in that area.

Diaz's acting in this movie was as if she never left, and Jamie Foxx delivered a strong performance to match her caliber. The child actors gave average performances, adding little depth but not detracting from the film either.

Like I said, it’s a movie you can sit through, but it’s not spectacular. It ends with an idea that there could make a sequel.