[ad_1]
Some films are long, but others feel long. The Union falls squarely in the second category. Starring Mark Wahlberg and Halle Berry, the Netflix action-comedy — this is an extremely loose description, because the movie is neither action-packed nor particularly funny — doesn’t have a self-indulgent run-time, thank god, but is interminable to behold. It’s entirely possible for you to binge all 10 episodes of the recent Prime Video series Mr and Mrs Smith in fewer sittings than it took for me to get through The Union, which plays like the kind of thing that wouldn’t command attention even in the hostage-like environment of a long-haul flight. The crying baby across the aisle would be more interesting.
Wahlberg plays an unremarkable construction worker named Mike, who spends his days pursuing older women and his evenings at the local bar, drinking with his childhood buddies. Mike has never left his home town, and even though nobody would say it to his face, he’s a bit of a loser. Perhaps the only reason why he isn’t openly mocked by the town goons is because he has the gait and game of a very popular movie star from Boston. Mike’s uneventful life is flipped on its head one evening when his ex-girlfriend, Roxanne, walks into his favourite watering hole.
Halle Berry as Roxanne Hall and Mark Wahlberg as Mike McKenna in The Union. (Photo: Netflix)
It’s been 25 years since they broke up, but while Mike was wasting his life, Roxanne was saving the world as an undercover operative for a clandestine agency known as, you guessed it, The Union. Think of it as a version of the Kingsmen, or Citadel, or even The Charter from Heart of Stone. All these movies — or show, in Citadel’s case — are completely interchangeable. They follow the same script, rely on the same tired tropes, and have the same anonymous quality that makes you wonder if they were created by humans at all.
Roxanne tells Mike that the identity of every member of The Union, and every other secret agency in the world, has been compromised because of a recent theft of classified information, and that they need him to step up and retrieve the data on their behalf. It takes months to complete spy training, Roxanne tells Mike, but he’ll have to manage in two weeks. None of this is explained to a satisfactory degree. Why can’t a real agent do this? We don’t know. Why has Mike been recruited at all? No idea. How can the fate of the world rest on a regular person’s shoulders? It must!
He isn’t especially skilled, nor does he seem interested in this new responsibility. The only reason for his involvement in this high-stakes game, you are forced to conclude, is because the shoddy script couldn’t think of a better way to contrive a scenario in which he’s made to work with his ex.
It’s pretty clear that Mike never quite moved on from Roxanne; perhaps that’s why he never left Jersey. But far be it of the movie to investigate interesting aspects of a failed romantic relationship. All attempts to revisit the past — Roxanne was hurt by the way Mike’s racist dad treated her — fall flat. And that’s because the movie doesn’t spend enough nearly time with these characters outside of the breakneck plot. How could it, when there’s a world to save?
Read more – Bruised movie review: Halle Berry is both the best thing and the worst thing about her directorial debut
Halle Berry as Roxanne Hall and Mark Wahlberg as Mike McKenna in The Union. (Photo: Netflix)
Deep in the second act, Mike and Roxanne are forced to share a room in a hideout, and a scene that could’ve been mined for sexual chemistry ends up having less juice than a pile of sand. Wahlberg and Berry appear to have collectively, and without the knowledge of director Julian Farino, decided to phone it in for the romantic scenes, and focus their energies on playing action heroes. In the end, neither works because you have no reason to care for either of these people.
By the time the third-act chase sequence rolls around — remarkably, it’s filmed entirely on location in Italy, and not inside a soundstage — The Union becomes indistinguishable from the PA system at an airport. If you have no reason to pay attention to it, you’re not going to. It’s the sort of movie that actively invites you to look at your phone, without realising that once you do, you’re never going to look up again.
The Union
Director – Julian Farino
Cast – Mark Wahlberg, Halle Berry, Mike Colter, JK Simmons, Jackie Earle Haley, Adewale Akkinuoye-Agbaje
Rating – 1.5/5
[ad_2]
Source link
