SPOILER SPECIAL
Back In Action
DIRECTORSETH GORDONON HIS STARRY NETFLIX ACTIONER
WORDS CHRIS HEWITT
SETH GORDON’S Back In Action has a multilayered title. On the one hand, it’s about superspy couple Matt and Emily (Jamie Foxx and Cameron Diaz) returning to the field after faking their own deaths to raise a family. On the other, it sees the return of Diaz to acting after a decade away, and it also applies to Foxx, who famously became seriously ill during the film’s shoot, with production resuming only after he made a long and gruelling recovery. The film itself is a knockabout action comedy which trades heavily on the charm and charisma of its duo, orchestrated by seasoned comedy veteran Gordon. Here, he tells Empire about the film’s key moments.
A TURBULENT BEGINNING
Back In Action starts with a major action sequence, as ace spies Matt (Foxx) and Emily (Diaz) are attacked on a plane, just after finding out they’re about to have a baby. But that wasn’t Plan A. “It used to be a train, and that information came out as they were escaping the bad guys,” says Gordon. “Then somebody up on high read the script late in the game and said, ‘No trains.’ Literally two weeks before we were going to start shooting, it was like, ‘Come up with something else!’” Luckily, Gordon had had a plane sequence in mind for another project. “I just stole it from myself, dialled it into these characters and this premise, and it went from an ambitious train sequence to an insanely ambitious plane sequence.”