‘The Union’ falls short of expectations despite star-studded cast
|Published
In order for a movie to be a riveting success, it must meet several criteria.
It should include a talented cast and crew and have a revolutionary storyline that will linger with viewers long after the film ends.
“The Union”, released recently on Netflix, was punted as a groundbreaking action movie .
Adapted from a screenplay by Joe Barton and David Guggenheim and directed by Julian Farino, who is renowned for helming much of the first three seasons of the HBO series “Entourage”, the cast includes three Oscar winners.
They are Halle Berry and Mark Wahlberg in leading roles and JK Simmons as a supporting act.
Mike Colter, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Jessica De Gouw, Alice Lee, and Jackie Earle Haley round off the cast.
And while there are enough superstars to draw viewers to the action-comedy, much of its storyline fails to adequately add something unique to the action movie genre.
There are some entertaining moments which keep streamers on the edge of their seats but much of the plot is stitched together by the remarkable chemistry between the co-stars who are two respected Hollywood actors.
In “The Union”, Wahlberg plays Mike McKenna, a friendly New Jersey construction worker who’s stuck in a rut. He still lives with his mother and is having an affair with his high school teacher.
In what he deems an act of fate, Mike then randomly meets up with his high school sweetheart Roxanne Hall (Berry) after 25 years at his local bar.
The pair were madly in love as teenagers but Roxanne had to leave New Jersey to go to college. He later discovers that she didn’t complete her studies due to her violent nature and was instead recruited to The Union, a highly-skilled CIA operation.
Unaware of her secret spy status, the former lovers reminisce about their teenage romance.
He agrees to leave the bar with her to go back to her apartment, before visiting some of their old spots.
But before he makes it to her place, she drugs and kidnaps him and takes him to London.
When he finally wakes up, he is bewildered to discover her real job.
Insistent that he wants to return home, he meets her boss Tom Brennan (Simmons) and the pair sell themselves as national heroes who frequently save the world.
They offer him a once-off proposal to work with their team on a special case which will involve him intercepting some important intelligence by infiltrating a top-secret auction and helping to recover its files before it unleashes deadly chaos in the wrong hands.
With years of history together, Roxanne trusts Mike and remembers him as a tough and loyal man.
She also tells him that this mission will add some excitement to his mundane life.
He eventually agrees and his CIA training, which involves physical training, a physiological analysis, advanced driving lessons and shooting lessons, is expedited.
He is also given a new identity and he jokes that he is the “Jersey James Bond”.
Mike then joins the unit as they embark on a dangerous and action-packed mission, which includes a bloody shoot-out in the streets of London.
But he soon discovers that Roxanne is married to her colleague, Nick Faraday (Colter), and that he is actually the mastermind behind stealing the intel.
The mission also gets personal when it is revealed that Nick killed one of the Unit’s members and even caused the death of many others by blowing up infrastructure in the UK’s capital city.
Roxanne believes that he died on a mission and insists that they are estranged.
The future of their unit also hinges on the success of this mission as the US government had to front hundreds of millions of dollars for them to participate in the auction.
And while Mike is crushed to find out about Roxanne’s relationship status, he continues with the mission.
Roxanne is also committed to Mike and goes to extreme lengths to protect him.
Ultimately, it is the trust and loyalty between the duo that sees them save the world and bring Nick to justice, a sweet ending to an adrenaline-filled adventure.
Another redeeming quality of the movie is females taking the lead, with Berry, who is in impeccable shape in the movie and just doesn’t seem to age, as the star of the show.
Meanwhile, one of the villains as well as other CIA operatives are also all women, which sends a strong message about females leading the line in the male-dominated action movie world.
Another enjoyable aspect of the movie is the comedy, which Berry and Wahlberg carry out with ease.
But overall, “The Union” doesn’t quite make its mark in the action film genre.
Audiences have over the decades grown accustomed to Hollywood blockbusters when it comes to the genre, including with “John Wick”, “The Equalizer” series and the “Mission Impossible” franchise, among many others.
“The Union”, with its line-up of stellar talents, really could have done more to give fans a movie that could have gone on to define a generation.
∎ “The Union” is streaming on Netflix.