On August 16, Netflix released a spy action movie with elements of comedy «The Union» starring Mark Wahlberg and Halle Berry. In the review below, we tell you what to expect from the next Friday’s new release on the streaming service. In a nutshell, it’s — everything we’ve seen before.
Pluses:
nice cast; normal action; good location shooting; not the worst action movie from Netflix;
Minuses:
a clichéd lazy plot that openly copies the best of the genre; some may miss the romantic chemistry between Mark Wahlberg and Halle Berry;
«The Union»
Genre spy comedy action movie
Director Julian Farino
Starring Mark Wahlberg, Halle Berry, J.K. Simmons, Mike Colter, Jackie Earle Haley, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Jessica de Gau, Alice Lee
Premiere Netflix
Year of issue 2024
Website IMDb
After a failed mission in Trieste, Italy, a secret spy organization «The Union» is forced to hunt for a critical suitcase containing lists of all agents, including the CIA. The bad guys plan to sell this valuable commodity to representatives of hostile states (the modern axis of evil — Russia, North Korea, Iran, etc.). In order to intercept it, the cool agent Roxanne Hall decides to recruit a man from the outside — her ex-boyfriend and classmate Mike McKenna.
He works as a construction worker in Paterson (hi, Jim Jarmusch), New Jersey, is sleeping with his former English teacher, and after a hard day’s work, he’s having a beer with friends at the local bar. In short, he lives an ordinary life. But after an unexpected encounter with Roxy, his measured existence comes to a screeching halt, and now the newly minted spy will have to work hard to live up to the expectations placed on him.
Once upon a time, a very patriotic NSA agent, Augustus Gibbons, recruited a tattooed, extremist hoodlum, Xander Cage, to neutralize a gang of terrorists, and it worked out well. In this way, the authors of the action movie «xXx» (2002) made it clear that an imposing heartthrob in an elegant suit is no longer viable as a combat spy unit in modern times (although Daniel Craig tried his best to prove that Bond was just it’s not time to die).
«The Union» also conveys the message that this world needs ordinary guys from the people, but instead of Diesel’s brutality, we get Wahlberg’s ease. The plot is as simple as it is predictable: the villains steal the notorious MacGuffin, the forces of good fail, and the agents are exposed. In fact, it suspiciously resembles the plot of «Mission Impossible» and at the same time parodic «Johnny English Strikes Again» (2018), where the government had no choice but to pull the foolish English out of the vaults.
In a sense, «The Union» maneuvers between a kind of serious spy action movie that deliberately refuses to have a pretentious James Bond-like savior and the blatant conventions of a comedy that mocks the very same 007 agent. That is, along with quite decently staged fights and beautifully filmed chases, there are lines about fingers in the anus or moments when Wahlberg’s character, with a gun in hand, is terrified of his reflection in the mirror (and this episode reminded me of a similar one in the first-person scene in the film adaptation of «DOOM»).
At the same time, the story itself does not go beyond the familiar genre tropes: there is the aforementioned MacGuffin, failed missions, and a traitor «unexpectedly» appears closer to the end. In contrast to these undoubtedly unfortunate factors related to the creative component, there are factors on the technical side — more or less normal action, a nice cast, and excellent location shooting.
So it’s not difficult to characterize this film: it’s a categorically banal but generally enjoyable movie that claims to be worthy of the audience’s attention on a Friday or Saturday night.
«Looks like a storm is coming to the Adriatic» — notes Halle Berry, the former Storm, in the opening scene, as she jumps off the roof of a house like a cat and lands on a moving bus. Suddenly, in one of the dialogues, Dominic Toretto will speak through her lips, if we have already mentioned Vin Diesel: «The main thing is not what kind of car, the main thing is — who is driving» — confidently says the winner of the «Oscar». Mark Wahlberg gives a typical Wahlberg performance, and it takes a lot of effort to distinguish his character from the hero of «The Family Plan» — a similar kind of comedy action movie on streaming.
But together, the actors offer a moderately interesting duet — no revelations at all, but all these hints of romance and related events make you want the couple to finally finish what they once started in the school closet.
«The Union» — is far from outstanding, unable to surprise, but an enjoyable lighthearted movie that honestly tries to entertain. It follows the ambitions of last year’s genre predecessors, such as «Ghosted» or «The Family Plan» with the same Wahlberg, namely — unpretentious entertainment at home on a Friday night.
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