Every once in a while, I’ll come across a movie that makes me wonder why it was even made.
Due to some scheduling overlaps, I ended up viewing Netflix’s “Back in Action” last week.
Honesty, I find nothing worthy of reporting outside of how annoying the children are.
Then again, that might just be because they were used as a comedy plot device and portrayed the worst stereotypes about tweens and teens.
The shooting locations were gorgeous and the cast was fairly top tier, but the storyline kept making weird connections and was still too boring despite the attempts at infusing action or comedy into each segment.
Action is an American action comedy film directed by Seth Gordon from a script he co-wrote with Brendan O’Brien.
The film stars Jamie Foxx, Cameron Diaz, Andrew Scott, Jamie Demetriou, Kyle Chandler, Robert Besta, and Glenn Close.
It clocks in at 114 minutes long and is rated PG-13 for sequences of violence and action, some suggestive references and strong language, and brief teen partying.
CIA NOC operatives Matt (Foxx) and his pregnant girlfriend Emily (Diaz) are tasked by their superior and friend Chuck (Chandler) to obtain the key called the Industrial Control Systems (ICS) – a device that can control any electronic system.
They must get it from the Polish KGB agent-turned-terrorist Balthazzar Gor (Besta) during his children’s grandiose birthday party.
Matt and Emily manage to steal the device and escape to a rendezvous point.
However, on their flight home, the crew ambushes them for the Key as they are on Gor’s payroll.
The duo manages to neutralize the flight crew and barely escapes the ensuing plane crash.
Realizing someone must have fed the flight crew information of the key, the two decide to go off the grid and keep their new family together.
Fifteen years later, the now-married Matt and Emily reside in Atlanta under new identities while trying to care for their children Leo (Jackson) and Alice (Roberts).
Things are going as well as any parent could hope with one technology-obsessed tween and a teenager who lives on their phone and cringes at anything their parents do.
Still, all goes relatively well until a filmed brawl involving the couple inside a nightclub attracts Chuck’s attention, as well as Gor’s Polish–Belarusian mercenary group Volka.
Chuck locates Matt and Emily based on the video and tries to warn them that Gor is after the key and them.
Unfortunately, the Volka shoot Chuck while he is trying to get Matt and Emily to safety.
Matt and Emily manage to lose the mercenaries during a car chase and end up taking the children with them from school, before catching a flight to England.
Matt had hidden the ICS Key inside the manor belonging to Emily’s estranged mother Ginny Curtis (Close).
Curtis is a former MI6 sniper who heads an offshore NGO, Foxhunter Ltd.
Arriving in Heathrow, the family is pursued by both Volka and MI6 led by Emily’s ex-boyfriend Baron (Scott).
From there, things get a bit weirder and strain the family dynamics while forcing several comedic scenes that only made me cringe.
Not to mention, there is barely any on-screen chemistry between Diaz and Foxx – but I digress.
Overall, it’s a fair movie but nothing super memorable sticks out in my mind about it, so, I’ll leave it up to you if you want to watch it.
