Mark Wahlberg and Halle Berry team up for The Uniona new Netflix action-thriller of the kind the platform loves to churn out on a regular basis. And why shouldn’t they? Spenser Confidential and The mother (and other completely forgettable adventures) have huge numbers on Netflix: big, dumb, expensive movies that are perfect for mindless weekend viewing. It’s now part of the Netflix brand. Not that we’re prejudging. The UnionNote; some of these films may be useful on their own terms (e.g., Extractioneither The gray man(of which I am perhaps the only defender, though not with such passion). Perhaps Wahlberg and Berry can transcend expectations and generate some excitement here? Hey, at least expectations are low!
THE UNIONSTREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
The essence: Mike McKenna (Wahlberg) is a regular guy from New Jersey: a 40-something construction worker who lives with his mother (Lorraine Bracco), hangs out for beers with the boys, has to jump-start his old pickup truck with a screwdriver, has a one-night stand with his old seventh-grade English teacher (Dana Delany!), and so on. His best days seem to be behind him, but is he aware of that? Frankly, he doesn’t seem like a self-reflective guy. Just a party-going, party-loving guy and all that, a Wahlbergian type who’s pretty thin on script and not much thicker on screen. He experienced sibling love in high school with Roxanne Hall (Berry), whom we meet in the cold, room-filling opening: She’s an international spy/agent/operative who finds herself in a shitty world when a mission goes inside-out and ends up upside-down. Her husband/fellow spy is killed by a sniper bullet during the parade of blunders. She barely survives to return home to Jersey and surprise Mike at the bar. Decades have passed. Just like old times, I guess.
Roxanne is all seductive smiles, motorcycles and leather with a mane of platinum blonde hair, just like… helloWho could resist? They pour themselves a few drinks and flirt and then she hits him with a tranquilizer and he wakes up in London. It happens! She needs a new recruit to join The Union. “Half the intelligence community doesn’t know we exist, and the other half is sorry to find out,” is how she describes the organization. They want blue-collar guys like Mike, who happens to have the body of a Masters of the Universe action figure, and he says that’s fine, even if it means disappearing off the grid for an intensive spy training montage and a top-secret mission, and probably missing out on being best man at his friend’s wedding. I think he does it in hopes of rekindling something with Roxanne. Or maybe he realizes he needs to end his aimless life? Sure. Whatever. He just goes along with it, and the movie asks us to do the same, even if we’re like Is this the premise? Indeed. This is the premise.
This is where we should get into the spy plot, not that it matters in the slightest. I mean, this movie is so weak that even the MacGuffin is half-baked: there’s a hard drive full of sensitive information and some bad guys have it and the Union needs to get it back. That’s more than enough summary, believe me. The bad guys are invisible nobodies who are behind a plan to auction off the hard drive to the highest bidder, and I apologize for saying I wouldn’t summarize any further, but I had to do so to illustrate that none of the villains deserve to be mentioned in the sense of a movie review where they are named (and that name is followed by the actor’s name in parentheses). Some of Mike and Roxanne’s companions are played by notable characters: JK Simmons as the no-nonsense boss, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje as another spy, Jackie Earle Haley as a technician. Will they manage to foil the nefarious plan? Boy, I’m getting bored again, because I’m writing about things that already bored me once, while watching it. That doesn’t bode well for this review.
What movies will it remind you of? This watery, ten times stirred Mission: Impossible The applicant can replace Red notice as Netflix’s most memorable and forgettable action comedy to date. It’s not as bad as Ghostan exit to Apple TV+ that was No Forgettable for its utter lack of soul. For what it’s worth.
Performance worth watching: We’re all for Halle Berry as an action star. She’s got the spunk and the screen presence for it, no doubt. But she needs something more. John Wick 3and less The Unionis crossing his desk.
Memorable dialogue: Ugh, I mean, ugh:
Mike: Just call me the James Bond of Jersey!
Roxanne: Fuck you?
Mike: Exactly!
Sex and skin: There’s no time for any of that.
Our opinion: The Union One wonders if it’s enough for a movie to offer us a few halfway decent action sequences, shot mostly with practical effects rather than shoddy computer-generated graphics. Obviously not. Director Julian Farino shows some skill in splicing together chases and fights, but he’s working from a script that’s only marginally better than the last installment of the movie that has nothing to do with the movie. Sniper franchise. And every other damn movie these days is about OPS. Have we had enough of OPS? Yeah. We’ve had enough of OPS. Always the high tech, secret planning, gunplay, earpiece communications, international scenarios, elaborate headquarters, and authoritarian JK Simmonses giving orders inside a command center full of monitors and morons with headsets typing on terminals. All. The. Other. Movies.
It’s worth noting that the film’s attempts at comedy are as bogged down as the romantic chemistry between Berry and Wahlberg. It may be aiming for a bit of comedy. Mr. and Mrs. Smith The film is an action movie, if it shows any courage at all, as it weaves through a gasp-worthy plot with a couple of bland twists and feints, and a third act that devolves into a pass-the-briefcase game that leaves you breathless. I suppose the film moves quickly, and there are a couple of Springsteen songs on the soundtrack, if you’re the kind of person who likes to shout the word Bruuuuuce when “Born in the USA” comes on the AM/FM radio. Clearly, this is a pretty well-paid gig for all parties involved, as Netflix tends to invest a lot of money into star-driven action material that hogs the middle of the road for a couple of weeks in the streaming service’s top 10 before being replaced in one’s memory by a new wave of hedgehog memes. There’s no real creativity here. The Union It is a business deal in movie format, and one of the most boring and cynical acts in Hollywood.
Our calling: Okay, I’m exaggerating. You’ll actually forget this movie before the memes start. SKIP IT!
John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
