It goes without saying that the last few weeks have been difficult for the community. It’s been a high time of stress, emotions and nerves. After being glued to the local news channels 24/7, it was time to mentally check out, turn off my brain and turn on some mindless distraction. Thankfully, Cameron Diaz and Jamie Foxx were there to answer the call with their new Netflix film Back in Action.
Back in Action follows Diaz and Foxx as Emily and Matt, former spies who have left the world of espionage to settle into domesticity after having their first child. But, despite how much you find yourself off grid, the past always has a way of catching up to you. It’s when their former boss Chuck (Kyle Chandler) shows up on their doorstep that Emily and Matt realize that their last mission 15 years ago may not have ended as smoothly as they hoped.
Thanks to their teenage daughter Alice (McKenna Roberts) and an incident at a nightclub, social media has blown their cover and their old enemies are out for revenge. Once they realize they’ve been compromised, their suburban mundanity escalates to high-stakes espionage. With guns blazing (literally) and high-speed car chasing, Alice and her brother Leo (Rylan Jackson) realize their parents might not be so boring after all.
At the crux of the movie is the hunt for the “ICS Key,” the piece de resistance that the terrorists are after and not-so-shockingly, was the crucial component of their last mission before Emily and Matt “died.” What follows is a cat and mouse game that takes them from Atlanta to London, recruiting Emily’s mother (Glenn Close), avoiding a former CIA colleague (Andrew Scott) and generally, just trying to stay alive.
Back in Action is noteworthy since, much like her character, Diaz had been in retirement for over a decade before returning to film this movie. She and Foxx last acted together in the 2014 movie adaption of Annie. Additionally, in the midst of filming was also when Foxx suffered a notorious health scare that kept him out of the public eye for months. (It has since been revealed by Foxx that he suffered a stroke and was subsequently in a coma.) Perhaps the drama of the behind-the-scenes overshadows the drama on screen, but truly, this was an ideal movie to shut out the real world.
This is the type of movie that you know exactly what you’re going to get – it will be ludicrous, there will be over-the-top fight scenes and everything will be wrapped up neatly in the end. Truthfully, after the week of uncertainty we all experienced, a movie that unraveled exactly as expected was much appreciated. It may be awards season when movies are lauded for their heavy themes and ground-breaking performances, but, after a heavy few weeks, watching something ridiculous was a proverbial palate cleanser.
Back in Action is streaming on Netflix.
