THE STORY – Mike is happy living a simple life as a construction worker in his native New Jersey – until his long-lost high school sweetheart, Roxanne, shows up with more on her mind than romance. Knowing he’s the right man for the job, she recruits Mike on a dangerous intelligence mission in Europe that thrusts them back together into a world of spies and high-speed car chases, with sparks flying along the way.
THE CAST – Mark Wahlberg, Halle Berry, Mike Colter, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Jessica De Gouw, Alice Lee, Jackie Earle Haley & J.K. Simmons
THE TEAM – Julian Farino (Director), Joe Barton & David Guggenheim (Writers)
THE RUNNING TIME – 107 Minutes
Going into any movie, the expectation is that you’ll understand the characters and why they do certain things. It becomes apparent early on in Julian Farino’s “The Union” that this is not that kind of movie. Mike (Mark Wahlberg), a homebody construction worker from New Jersey, spends his days hooking up with his former seventh-grade teacher or hanging out with buddies after work. But one day, his long-lost high school sweetheart Roxanne (Halle Berry), now a spy, shows up to recruit him for a top-secret mission. Apparently, he’s the best guy for the job, but why is never fully explained, nor have we been given any insight into their relationship up to this point.
That’s just the tip of the iceberg with this latest Netflix action film, which cuts so many corners with its writing. “The Union” follows the same formula as so many other spy movies that it entirely lacks any personality. Much of it is so poorly set up that one has to wonder if the screenwriters want anyone to watch it at all. The all-star cast turns out decent performances, but not even they can save this overly cliched and dull flick.
The film opens up on a mission gone wrong in Italy that results in the deaths of several members of a top-secret organization called The Union. A hard drive was stolen with intel on every man and woman who has ever served in a Western-allied country, and if that information gets into the wrong hands, many people’s lives are at risk. Needing a new recruit, preferably someone who is a nobody and goes unnoticed, Roxanne heads to New Jersey to find Mike. By this point in the film, there’s been no leadup to establish their relationship or why Mike is the guy for a mission of this caliber. There’s no flashback to them in high school, no scene that shows him heartbroken over her disappearance, and nothing to indicate that he’s the man for the Secret Service. Instead, he’s introduced as a joke, as he drives a rundown car that needs a screwdriver instead of a key to turn on.
After a few cliched moments of them “rekindling” their romance – entirely hard to believe given the lack of backstory – Roxanne drugs him. She takes him to London, where he’s introduced to her boss, Tom Brennan (Simmons, playing his usual unimpressed guy persona), and the other agents. Tom and Mike, much like the viewers of this film, are confused as to why Roxanne chose him for the job, but it’s finally revealed that it’s because he used to be an all-star athlete and someone she could count on in the past … OK? That might be one of the craziest leaps of faith anyone has ever made for any task, let alone one that involves classified secrets.
Once Mike agrees to join this crazy and frankly uninspiring mission, “The Union” plays out how you expect it. There’s a training montage where we see him gain combat skills and slowly rebuild his trust with Roxanne. Surprise, things go wrong once he’s out on his first mission. Despite the lackluster storytelling and one’s waning interest in the film by this point, the action sequences are fairly well-choreographed and full of high energy. Wahlberg and Berry have done their fair share of action films in their careers, so it makes sense why they were teamed up for this adventure. Even though the script doesn’t give them anything new to work with, they play off each other well when out in the field.
However, that’s far less convincing when it comes to their romantic chemistry. Strangely, they’re labeled as former high school sweethearts, given there’s very little flirting or sparks between them. At one point, they start fighting about how their fathers disapproved of their relationship when they were younger, which comes at such a random time in the film and is such an unnecessary conversation. Again, this is where we would have benefitted from a flashback to their past to understand better why any of this matters. Further romantic potential is thwarted when a ghost from Roxanne’s past returns, which makes Mike assert his dominance and show why he’s the best man for her, although it’s not like he was trying that hard to win her over. This person brings forth concerning information about a potential rat inside The Union, which throws yet another cliche in the film.
As is the theme with everything else in this film, there’s little setup or introduction to the “bad guys,” and a double crosser’s (yes, there’s even one of those!) motivations are so quickly glossed over that you’ll lose track of the story if you’re not paying attention – that is if you even make it this far. Somehow, “The Union” manages to both do too much by incorporating all the cliches of the spy genre and way too little by not presenting an interesting script or one that does the bare minimum of setting up the plot. Even if you’re somewhat interested in the movie because of the cast, save yourself the trouble and find something else to watch on Netflix.