Adam Collins, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Alex Brightman
109 min
TLDR
It’s a nothingburger of a movie, but hey, it’s always fun to see veteran actors kick ass like the years haven’t gone by.
What it's about
Mike’s (Mark Wahlberg) small life is changed overnight when his ex-girlfriend Roxanne (Halle Berry) recruits him to The Union, a government agency comprised of regular blue-collar-job people working as undercover agents.
The take
The plot of the Union feels insultingly childish. An undercover agency has to retrieve an important device before it falls into the “wrong” (i.e. non-Western) hands, and to achieve that, they absolutely must have Mike (Wahlberg) on their team. That nothing here seems plausible shouldn’t be the point--it’s an action movie anyway. But even the action isn’t thrilling. There’s no tension or buildup, no satisfying hits and falls. There’s nothing in here that you haven’t seen before. The potential saving grace lies in its A-lister leads, Wahlberg and Berry. They’re supposed to be lovers here but the chemistry they create is closer to “colleagues who have an unexplored spark” more than anything. The Union works as a mid-tier nostalgia-filled film. It’s a perfectly okay movie, neither bad nor good, which seems par for the course for streaming anyway.
What stands out
Berry’s hairstylist did her dirty. You can’t see half her face the entire time! And highlights in the year 2024? Please be serious.
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