In Julian Farino’s The Union, now on Netflix, Mike (Mark Wahlberg) is your everyday, All-American dude. He works in construction by day and hangs out at the local bar with his construction buddies at night. He’s lived in New Jersey his whole life and has no plans to leave. He’s got everything he could need—a steady job, good pals, and a fling with his former seventh-grade teacher (Dana Delany). What more could he possibly need?
That’s something Mike finds himself asking when Roxanne (Halle Berry) appears at the bar one fateful night. They were the toast of their high school growing up, but Roxanne left Jersey and never looked back. Her return sparks all sorts of old feelings in Mike, and they seem to have a lot of unfinished business—and feelings—for each other. The next morning, Mike is stunned to find that he’s woken up in London. It’s his first time out of America and he didn’t even know he left. Turns out Roxanne works for a secret agency known as the Union, and she’s drugged and transported Mike to London to recruit him for a top-secret mission.
See, the Union has remained an unknown organization for eons because they specifically recruit people who fly under the radar. Working-class types who, as the Union's leader (J.K. Simmons) puts it, know how to get things done because they’ve never been handed anything a day in their lives. The Union largely operates from London, where they’ve built a vast and powerful network of agents.
This begs the question: What exactly does Mike have that makes him such a standout candidate? It’s clear the Union has considerable resources and a robust team full of talented agents who’ve trained for years in their field, so what does Mike offer to a mission that could put all of Western security at its brink? Especially when Mike has never left the tri-state area or expressed any interest in life outside Paterson, New Jersey. Surely there’s some sort of ability Mike has that Roxanne remembers from their time together that makes him useful for the highest-stakes mission the Union has ever come across?
Halle Berry and Mark Wahlberg
Courtesy of NetflixI don’t know the answer to that question, and neither does The Union. Mike is, quite literally, just some guy. A generic action-movie training montage shows that he can grasp in a matter of days what takes most agents six months, but the only reason he seems to be able to do this is narrative convenience.
The script, written by Joe Barton (The Lazarus Project) and David Guggenheim (The Christmas Chronicles), seems far more interested in plot twists for the sake of plot twists and heavy bouts of exposition over any meaningful detail, which makes The Union a frustratingly bland movie. It’s one of many logical frustrations—Mike’s alias is a man from Boston, an accent he adopts and then abandons three seconds later. Another bizarre instance occurs when one of the agents mispronounces a popular region in London. Unforced errors like this happen throughout The Union, and its fascination with exposition and overcomplicated plots no reasonable person would be interested in results in more of these lazy issues.
The same lack of attention to detail is reflected in Roxanne’s hair. It’s as illogical as it is impractical—why would a spy wear her hair in a way that can easily obscure her vision? The blonde streaks are eye-catching, but the Union prides itself on slipping under the radar, using people who can effortlessly blend into everyday situations and not attract attention to themselves. Roxanne’s hair, however, is made to stand out, which is the very antithesis of the Union. Giving Halle Berry such an unflattering hairstyle is questionable enough, but giving her character a look that goes against the very essence of what she’s trying to do is criminal.
Halle Berry
Laura Radford/NetflixBerry is, perhaps unsurprisingly, the saving grace of The Union. She’s charming and believable (hair aside) as a kickass agent, and while the script and uninspired action choreography give her nothing of note to work with, her energy is still infectious, and her chemistry with Wahlberg is pretty decent, which is impressive since Wahlberg is generally unconvincing in the lead role.
Berry and Wahlberg have both said that they’ve always wanted to work together, and I don’t blame them for choosing The Union to do just that—who in their right mind would turn down the opportunity to film in great locations for what was presumably a hefty sum? But if the co-stars had fun filming, you’d barely know it based on the end result. It’s a lifeless, visually uninteresting, convoluted experience that combines the thrills of waiting in a dentist's office with the mystery of waiting at the DMV.
