Director: Seth Gordon
Writer: Seth Gordon, Brendan O’Brien
Stars: Cameron Diaz, Jamie Foxx, Glenn Close
Synopsis: Former CIA spies Emily and Matt are pulled back into espionage after their secret identities are exposed.
Eleven years after the release of Annie, Cameron Diaz has come out of retirement to star in the action/comedy Back in Action, which reunites her with Jamie Foxx, who also starred in the 2014 reimagining of the hit Broadway musical. In using Back in Action as a vehicle for her return to acting, Diaz wants to recreate the comedic magic that made her a household name in the 1990s and early 2000s with She’s the One, There’s Something About Mary, and The Holiday. Of course, the title not only refers to the film’s CIA agents getting back in action after their identity is exposed but also cheekily winks at Diaz returning to the medium that made her the star she (still) is today. Sadly, Back in Action contains zero magic since it’s less interested in developing dynamic chemistry between the two leads and more pressed on filling the ever-expansive Netflix algorithm with more mind-numbing “content” than something of true value that will stand the test of time instead of being forgotten in a week when their variation on the same film comes out.
It does feel redundant to discuss the problems that plague most Netflix productions because most of these “films” (if we can call them that, but that would be an insult to, you know, actual movies) serve as nothing but background noise for someone who can’t concentrate in front of something for more than two hours and needs to look at their phone every five seconds. But that’s what most of these movies are. Even the masses will largely forget the prestige stuff (Emilia Pérez? Anyone?) when the next awards cycle begins. In that regard, however, Back in Action is the perfect movie for viewers who don’t want to watch movies because it has the attention span of a TikToker who continuously scrolls on their phone all day and looks at nothing but fruitless videos that give them little to no dopamine rush. It’s genuinely incredible how virtually nothing works in this 114-minute-long actioner; you’d think a robot generated lifeless doubles of both Diaz and Foxx in an entirely synthetic background to pass it off as a real return to the screen for an actress we’ve all missed because of how bored they look on-screen together, even though it was Foxx’s idea in the first place to bring her back into the spotlight.
As CIA spies turned (too) controlling parents, Diaz and Foxx have zero chemistry in this listless moving picture that showcases us twenty-four images every second (rather than running at 24 frames per second), as if we always need to be stimulated instead of developing a tangible aesthetic, writing fully-developed characters who we latch onto beyond the off-screen personas of its leads, crafting nifty action setpieces, and give a carefree, entertaining time to the audience. Each flatly shot action scene is hacked to bits as if editor Peter S. Elliot forgot that the entire notion of “attention span” exists. Worse yet, none of the dialogue that over TWENTY (not a joke) screenwriters contributed to, in one shape or another, feel in any way natural. It doesn’t look like Diaz and Foxx were on the same set for most of the movie, possessing none of the fun they had just eleven years ago (even if Annie was not very good). However, this was true in some cases, as Foxx was hospitalized for a medical emergency during filming, and a body double was required to complete several scenes with his face digitally inserted in post-production.
The results, while understandable given the gravity of Foxx’s emergency, aren’t very convincing and make this chemistry-less picture even more devoid of any real emotion. One even wonders how director Seth Gordon managed to get legitimate talents like Kyle Chandler, Glenn Close (who needs to stop working with Netflix, collecting so many terrible movies to her resumé like they’re infinity stones), and Andrew Scott to deliver three of the most embarrassing performances of their respective careers. Chandler seems so far above the material he’s given but looks, for some time, to be the most unscathed of them all because of his limited screen presence.
He phones it in, yet it doesn’t look like he’s in the movie for much. Whatever, we all need money, and no one can blame such an incredible actor for accepting the easiest-ever paycheck (if you were in the same situation, would you? Of course you would – don’t lie!). After all, acting is an art, but it’s also, first and foremost, a profession. However, Gordon makes the bafflingly predictable decision to bring him back near the movie’s conclusion for what would be considered a “shocking” twist if it was built correctly up but is so telegraphed from the start that audiences will figure it out long before Christopher Lennertz’s bludgeoning music reveals it with little to no nuance, or depth.
Back in Action is such a dishonest movie that no audience member who values their time could ever find enjoyment inside a “piece of content” that never rewards us. The plot is as basic as it comes, but Gordon does have the opportunity to infuse some fun into the proceedings through its lead stars’ natural chemistry. And yet, there isn’t a scene with both of them that actively works, either comedically or emotionally. It also is a spectacular feat to make Glenn Close’s turn as Emily’s estranged mother, Ginny, so far worse than the last movie she starred in, The Deliverance. If you thought her saying “I can smell your nappy pussy” was terrible in Lee Daniels’ horror picture (which did have some things going for it, most notably rock-solid work from Andra Day, Mo’Nique, and Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor), just wait when seeing her share the screen with Jamie Demetriou, already the top spot as the year’s most grating character, with nothing else to offer beyond dull physical comedy with zero sense of timing.
All of this is bad enough, but it’s genuinely such an absolute shame that Diaz would want to make her return to acting with…whatever this is. Perhaps she felt compelled to at least give another memorable role to the screen after her last four motion pictures, The Counselor, The Other Woman, Sex Tape, and Annie, were massive critical failures. You were on top for some time, but your career took a nosedive by choosing one flimsy project after another. No one can blame Diaz for coming back and hopefully rectifying the last movies she starred in while perhaps hoping that her acting career will also be reinvigorated by newfound interest in her screen presence.
Yet, Back in Action is somehow worse than all four movies combined. At least these ones had some form of life or directorial juice (one of them is directed by Ridley Scott, after all) behind them that, in comparison to her latest endeavor, made them semi-watchable. If anything, Diaz came out of these projects unscathed because her versatility as an actress has always made her a real talent on-screen, having fun with different genres and working with the best-ever filmmakers to make her an even better performer than she already was (i.e. Oliver Stone’s Any Given Sunday and Cameron Crowe’s vastly underappreciated Vanilla Sky).
There isn’t a single scene, or even a fleeting moment, from Back in Action that feels worthy of Diaz’s on-screen talents, and her performance is nowhere near the level of commitment and standards she has always set on screen, whether good or bad the finished project ultimately became. Foxx, who has always possessed a natural sense of charm, doesn’t fare any better either. In a way, it does feel like a Herculean feat to make two of the most charismatic people whose effervescent qualities always pop off the screen look like they have never acted on a movie set a day in their life. Watching the film, I kept asking myself where the “fun” that Diaz kept talking about made her want to come out of retirement and co-star with Foxx. After all, what convinced her to star in another picture again was Foxx saying to her, “Do you wanna have some fun? Just have some fun!” (or maybe it was money. Who knows, but we’ll stick to the official version).
Perhaps they had fun off-set. But on the screen, Back in Action feels like the antithesis to what is objectively described as “fun,” which is, according to Merriam-Webster, “providing entertainment, amusement or enjoyment.” Based on this definition, you’d likely have more fun watching even Garth Thomas’ eight-hour Baa Baa Land, which captures sheep standing in a field in the hopes that their audience members will fall asleep, than sit through this agonizing excuse of a “film” that insults both our intelligence and the precious time we have on this decaying planet.
