Life has come to a head in high school for Mike McKenna (Mark Wahlberg), while then-sweetheart Roxanne Hall (Halle Berry) has managed to escape New Jersey and travel the world. While he joins the local construction workers union, she joins the Syndicate, a secret spy group of which Roxanne simply states: “Half the intelligence community doesn’t know we exist, and the other half regrets finding out.”
“The Union” is a lazy fantasy from Netflix's Star Service division, and it's actually a story. reunion The film is set in a crisis that has been seen many times in recent spy movies. For Berg, his dream is to become James Bond, something that will never happen to the Dorchester-born American. The fantasy is to play the role of a future best man, recruited by former Bond girl Halle Berry (who sports her most outlandish haircut since “Swordfish,” a cartoon-style bob with a shaved side, spiked ends and a blond top).
The basic premise of the film is to insert a working-class guy into a standard action movie, and the excuse it gives is unconvincing. Someone has stolen “information on every man and woman who has served a Western-allied nation” (much like the plot of the National Counterterrorism Committee’s list in the original Mission: Impossible), and to get it back, the Federation needs someone who isn’t on that list. They need someone who’s worthless, and Roxanne knows just the right man for the job.
Mike has been drinking at the same bar since Roxanne left him, hoping she’ll come back into his life. “Is it what you imagined?” Roxanne asks him when she does. “I don’t know,” he says. “In my head, you were always wearing a bikini.” This is just further evidence that the film is made for 13-year-olds, even if Wahlberg thinks he’s making it for blue-collar guys back home. What else could it mean when his characters say, “It’s nice to see yourself reflected on screen”? He’s not drinking martinis in a tailored tux, but that doesn’t feel like the kind of representation Hollywood has been missing.
Again, this is Wahlberg’s kid, and while the plot is the other way around, it was actually him (as producer) who recruited Perry to play two undercover agents in disguise together. The stars have known each other for decades, and that history—which translates into snarky lines like “I guess this is why we’re not together anymore” and mildly snarky comments—is the best thing about a film that could have benefited from more silly comedic conflict. Instead, we get generic business trips to Trieste, London, and Istria, where Mike faces challenges like driving on the wrong side of the road and jumping off a bridge into a passing boat.
Wahlberg plays Mike as if he doesn’t want to do spy work, but the movie never gives him a compelling reason to join the Federation. He might have joined if Roxanne was kidnapped, or if someone he knew (like Lorraine Bracco, who wasted her life as his mother) was in danger, but as written, the character agrees because the actor playing him likes the idea. I suspect Wahlberg is also responsible for recruiting director Julian Farino (who directed nearly two dozen episodes of “Entourage”). He can handle comedy, but action doesn’t come naturally to the director, as is evident in the scenes recycled from James Bond and “Mission: Impossible” films.
Once Mike agrees to join, the film compresses a two-week training program (actually shortened from six months) into a trailer-length montage, during which he meets other members of the Federation: high-ranking boss Tom Brennan (J.K. Simmons), combat veteran Frank Prevert (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), psychiatric resident Athena Kim (Alice Lee) and an underutilized IT guy who calls himself “The Boss” (Jackie Earle Haley). At times, “The Federation” seems to suggest that all of these agents were once honest, hardworking people like Mike—in which case, the name of the organization kind of makes sense—but if that’s true, Roxanne doesn’t fit the profile.
Or maybe it is. The problem with “Union” is that neither the film nor its characters are very much a character, to the point where we don’t even know what feelings they have for each other. Revealing the villain would ruin a mild surprise, though it seems reasonable to complain about the cheap trick of insisting that said villain was once married to Roxanne. When the three characters get together, the film aims to ignite jealousy between Mike and his rival, but mostly it serves to stymie whatever chemistry there was between the former high school sweethearts, as Mike finds himself in the friend zone.
In theory, there’s something inherently appealing about Berry and Wahlberg as action stars. They’ve both excelled in the genre before: It’s hard to top Berry’s intensity in Kidnapping , while Wahlberg was better as Peter Berg’s real-life hero in Patriots Day . In Union , it’s easy to see that his stunt doubles are on for half the time, and when they’re not, neither actor is very convincing—which is to say that instead of entertaining the idea that a Jersey boy could be a spy, it shatters the previously established notion that Wahlberg should play a spy.
