The only word that springs to mind when trying to describe the action comedy The Union is generic. From top to bottom, The Union is a movie that goes through the motions at every turn, content to coast by using a tried and tested playbook without ever deviating from formula or contrivance. Technically speaking, The Union isn’t doing anything wrong, and it’s nothing if not competent in its rock bottom goals. But the fact that director Julian Farino isn’t trying anything remotely new or refreshing here makes getting through The Union kind of a slog unless you put it on in the background while performing daily household chores. It’s pleasant enough background noise; the definition of mediocrity. Audiences deserve better, but if they pop in and out of it without paying much attention they could be tricked into thinking they had an okay time doing things they probably had to drag themselves out of bed to do in the first place; a movie you could do your taxes to.
It might work better if you’ve never seen one of these types of movies before – one where old flames team up under extreme circumstances – but even then the viewer isn’t going to gain anything lasting from it. Mark Wahlberg stars as Mike McKenna, a New Jersey construction worker who’s prone to bed hopping and, if his P.O.S. pickup truck is any indication, suffering financially. One night while out with the boys at a bar, his high school sweetheart, Roxanne Hall (Halle Berry), waltzes back into his life from out of nowhere. They more or less pick up where they left off, but Roxanne has ulterior motives for coming back to Jersey. Roxanne ends up drugging Mike and whisking him away to London (although, one wonders if there wasn’t possibly a better way to get him over there).
Roxanne works for the titular corporation, a super secret American intelligence agency (aren’t they all?) made up of blue collar nobodies with no deep histories that are able to sneak around undetected in society. After an operation goes horribly sideways, The Union has to retrieve a briefcase with a hard drive inside of it (a twofer of cliches for the price of one, add a third with the contents being the identities and personal information of every intelligence operative or cooperator) that’s about to go before a black market auction. Roxanne wants Mike to pose as a potential buyer, and says the whole thing will be a piece of cake. How much do you want to bet that it’s not? (Don’t take that bet. You’ll likely win, but the profits won’t be worth your 105 minute investment.) How about betting on whether or not there’s a mole within the department that will secretly turn out to be the villain? (Hot tip that works for all of these kinds of movies: look for the high value member of the cast who seems like they’re being underused despite their prominent billing. That’s your mole. You’re welcome.)
There’s nothing in The Union that will challenge the viewer or provoke them to any sort of thought, which would be fine if there was at least some ingenuity or originality on display. It’s not a bad looking film, but outside of some nice location scouting there’s nothing here that would make someone think this is some sort of visual stunner. The pacing is pleasingly brisk, and Farino and writers Joe Barton (The Ritual) and David Guggenheim (Safe House, The Christmas Chronicles) don’t make anyone wait too long before getting to “the good stuff” (or maybe I should just say “the stuff,” because no one should get their hopes up here). There’s a good performance in here from the always reliable J.K. Simmons as the leader of The Union, and Berry and Wahlberg are capable of confidently carrying this sort of genre piece, despite having serviceable, unexceptional romantic and comedic chemistry. It’s fine. Everything here is fine. But to celebrate this for being just okay is like celebrating a plain rice cake for doing it’s job as a rice cake or room temperature water for being lukewarm. What is there to celebrate?
The action set pieces are also middle of the road for this sort of thing, with the exception of the final twenty minutes, when the heroes travel to Croatia for a showdown with the villains. There’s a really nifty car chase and another great bit where Mike uses his skills as a construction worker to take out some henchmen. If things like that were present throughout the entirety of The Union, maybe it would’ve moved the needle a bit. But by the time the most creative action beats arrive, it’s a case of too little, too late.
With millions of streaming options out there right now, one could absolutely do better than watching The Union to kill time. They could also do a lot worse. But I would almost argue that viewers would be better off watching something actively worse than this. At least then they might feel some kind of emotional connection to what they’re watching instead of feeling like they’ve been tricked into staring at a blank slate.
The Union is now available to stream on Netflix.
