August 19, 2024 · Watch the official trailer
August is a notoriously bad time for new releases in cinema.
And yet despite this fact, somehow the most outlandish, egregious idea in the latest Netflix film “The Union” is that quintessential Boston guy Mark Wahlberg is from New Jersey having to pretend to be from Boston.
Director Julian Farino’s film is the newest in a long string of nonsensical, big-budget movies from the streamer with A-list actors that are casually made and dumped on audiences with little consideration for quality plot or character development.
When put into the context of a bad movie month, “The Union” fares decently well. The ridiculousness of its plot and the casual breeziness in the ways its “Mission: Impossible” like storyline are more palatable than, for example, the Matt Damon-Casey Affleck misfire “The Instigators” which unceremoniously dropped on Apple TV+ last weekend.
Yet an action comedy starring Wahlberg opposite Halle Berry somehow isn’t even worth attempting to put in theaters when five years ago, either lead would be the centerpiece of a film that would easily net $100 million-plus at the box office.
“The Union” follows Wahlberg as a down-to-earth, journeyman construction worker thrust into the center of international espionage when his ex-girlfriend from high school saunters back into his life asking him to be a stand-in for a black-market auction with global implications.
Wahlberg brings the same sheepish, affable charm that one might come to expect from any number of his everyday guy meets daunting task films such as “Deepwater Horizon” or “Patriots Day” and yet the fish-out-of-water storyline for his Mike doesn’t fully match up with Wahlberg’s physique or the relative ease with which he’s able to stride into increasingly harrowing action sequences.
Conversely, Berry, an actress known for her prowess in both dramatic and action films, is well at home with the physical nature of her character, although the lighthearted comedy aspects of “The Union” don’t always land for her relatively stoic and stiff demeanor as Roxanne.
For a big-budget Netflix film that usually only has room for a single A-lister in top billing such as the Jennifer Lopez stinker “Atlas” from earlier this year, the chemistry between Berry and Wahlberg seems genuine and vibrant, harkening back to the two actors’ real-life friendship spanning decades.
Surprisingly, the decision to keep the romantic aspects between their Mike and Roxanne to a minimum with the expectation that “The Union” would be the first in a series of films seems somewhat problematic and implausible from a storytelling perspective especially given how much stronger the overall quality of a stylistically similar movie like “The Fall Guy” with Emily Blunt and Ryan Gosling was just months ago.
The secondary cast of “The Union” is perhaps better than it has any right to be, although Oscar winner J.K. Simmons seems to appear far more frequently in small parts than perhaps might be best with more discerning choices in his post-“Whiplash” career, while the remainder of the ensemble feels largely forgettable as soon as the credits roll.
Action sequences in the film are somewhat generic espionage film fodder, though the opening homage to the original “Mission: Impossible” movie seems almost a straight rip-off rather than honoring a dynamic franchise.
That being said, there is enough casual entertainment, lighthearted humor, and easy-going chemistry between the film’s two leads that might make “The Union” worth turning on in the background on a casual Tuesday night watch.
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