'Back In Action' Netflix Review: Props To The Stunt Team, Shame On The Rest (2025)

If you take a look at the last four years of Netflix original films set in the action genre (because going as far back as 2015 is pointless, since the streaming platform’s priorities have changed), you’ll notice that they make two types of action movies. The first kind are those that have genuine passion behind them, bursting with creativity, and instantly memorable, while the second kind are those that feel like Netflix’s donation to the actors’ retirement fund. For example, in 2021, on one side you had Kate, and on the other side you had Red Notice. In 2022, we got both something as innovative as Lost Bullet 2 and something as disappointing as The Gray Man. For 2023, there was Ballerina to get your adrenaline pumping and Heart of Stone to bore you to sleep. 2024 was the year for stuff like 60 Minutes and City Hunter and also for garbage like Atlas and Damsel. But, regardless of the quality of these Netflix films, I realized that the stunt work in all of them was top-notch; it’s just a shame that everything else around them was not on the stunt team’s level. On that note, let’s talk about Back in Action.

Seth Gordon’s Back in Action, which he has co-written with Brendan O’Brien, tells the story of two spies, Matt and Emily, who have to extract an ICS key from Balthazar Gor, the head of a villainous organization called the Volka. Once that’s done, their boss, Chuck, remotely orders the couple to reach the rendezvous point, meet Baron from MI6, get on their extraction flight, and then return home safely with the package. Since things seem to be going smoothly, Emily announces that she is pregnant, and Matt is both excited and nervous to begin this new chapter of their journey. But that’s when the crew of the plane reveals that they’re to take the ICS key and kill Emily and Matt. A fight ensues, the plane crashes, and Matt and Emily miraculously survive. They decide then and there that they’re going to maintain the ruse that they died in that “accident” so that they can begin their family life. Several years go by as Matt and Emily focus on bringing up their kids, Alice and Leo, while staying as far away as possible from spy work. However, the past eventually catches up to them, thereby forcing them to go on the run and reveal the truth about their lives to their children.

The only thing that Back in Action has going for it is the phenomenal work done by the stunt team. Everything else is plain bad. I can’t even imagine how Gordon and O’Brien described the plot of the movie—where two kids learn that their parents are actually spies—to Netflix and got it greenlit even though the Spy Kids franchise literally exists. Heck, Netflix even made a direct-to-streaming sequel to those movies by Robert Rodriguez! I guess they used terms like “grounded” and “realistic” and then threw a bunch of “Gen Z versus Boomers” jokes into the mix and impressed the hell out of the financiers. Just to be clear, I totally understand that, for Netflix, the plot of a movie isn’t important, especially if it’s in the action genre. The plot for films that fall into this particular category (you know, the retirement fund type of flicks) is there to pad the runtime so that the viewers think they’ve watched a movie while doing their laundry or cleaning their room. It also acts as a gateway for some action set pieces so that the audience doesn’t think that they’ve entirely wasted their money on the cinematic equivalent of static noise. But I’ll admit that it must take some real talent to take this nothingburger of a script and convince producers to ignore all the genuinely good stuff out there and approve this.

In terms of action sequences, Back in Action has an airplane escape, two highway chases, a bike chase with multiple motorbikes, a boat chase, and a bunch of hand-to-hand combat sprinkled in between. They don’t get any points for innovation, but, as mentioned before, all the practical stunt work is genuinely impressive. There’s a car flip in the first car chase and a Final Destination-esque pipe destruction bit in the second car chase, and they are brilliant. The way the motorbikes have been utilized in that third act is undoubtedly nail-biting. And you can totally see the actors playing somebody’s henchmen or faceless soldiers selling the hell out of every kick and punch that’s landing on them to make the main cast look good. But the main cast is doing nothing to make this action film interesting. Every time the editor has to switch from footage of the stars to that of their stunt doubles, you get to experience some A-grade whiplash because the difference in quality is that vast. The only thing worse than that is Seth Gordon’s attempts at comedy and drama. I sincerely think that the whole movie is a series of first takes. I won’t believe it if Gordon himself tells me that he shot more than one take for a scene; any scene. Yes, that’s how horrible it is up here.

Cameron Diaz and Jamie Foxx, both are seasoned actors. They’ve been in the business for quite a while. And, in Back in Action, they’re playing a couple who’ve sacrificed a lot so that they can be with their kids. Yet, based solely on their performances, it always feels like their characters are in a hurry to get out of the scene and go somewhere else. There’s no chemistry. There’s no interest in elevating the source material. They are just going through the motions so that they can go check out what the catering department has cooked up. Glenn Close is British in the movie, and it’s quite something. Jamie Demetriou is in this joint too, and his contribution can be equated to those screaming goats from Thor: Love and Thunder. Andrew Scott is so visibly disinterested throughout the film that I want to have a look at all the unusable footage, because if what they salvaged looks this way, I can’t even imagine the state of the rest of it. Kyle Chandler is the only one who shows commitment, like he has throughout his career. It doesn’t matter if there’s a kaiju on the screen or an ICS key; Kyle will give you his all, and that’s why he is the best. McKenna Roberts, Rylan Jackson, Fola Evans-Akingbola, and the rest of the supporting cast are okay. Additionally, a major shout-out to the stunt team; they deserve a huge round of applause.

In case it’s not clear already, Back in Action is a bad movie by any standard. Ask one of your friends who is good at editing to compile all the action sequences; watch that, seek out the members of the stunt team, and tell them that they’ve done a great job. If you want to watch the whole movie, don’t complain that you weren’t warned. Alright, with that out of the way, I just want to share this thought that kept creeping into my head while watching this film. Okay, so do you remember the movie Knight and Day, with Cameron Diaz and Tom Cruise, where the latter was a spy and the former unknowingly became a part of his mission and they went on a rollicking adventure and fell in love and whatnot? Yeah, and I kept thinking, what if Back in Action was a sequel to that? Everything would’ve been the same, but Cruise would’ve been the husband, and maybe Foxx would’ve been Chuck or Baron, you know, as a treat for fans of Collateral. Of course, with Tom Cruise and James Mangold involved, this would’ve been a different beast altogether. But at least it would’ve been memorable! Who the hell is going to remember this pile of nothing 24 hours after they’ve watched it? Well, let’s hope that after inflicting this on us, Netflix is going to come up with a legitimately good action flick to balance the scales later this year. Let’s hope.

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'Back In Action' Netflix Review: Props To The Stunt Team, Shame On The Rest (2025)
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