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The Union: Netflix Delivers Another Dead-On-Arrival Action Comedy

This is <em>#CineFile</em> where our critic <em>Rahul Desai</em> goes beyond the obvious takes, to dissect movies and shows that are in the news.

Rahul+Desai

Aug 16, 2024

The Union. Netflix

EVERY TIME a C-grade Hollywood spy thriller/comedy threatens to release, you can bet your meagre inheritance on the fact that it’s a Netflix film. The consistency is impressive, really. From Gal Gadot to Ryan Reynolds to Chris Hemsworth to Dwayne Johnson, the streamer has somehow managed to be responsible for nearly every A-lister’s worst film. Of course these titles trend at #1 worldwide, which means almost as much as a modern-day Hotmail account. Which is to say: Netflix’s feature fiction slate is second only to Donald Trump’s second presidential campaign in terms of how provocatively mediocre it is. The Union starring Halle Berry and Mark Wahlberg, is another notch in this culturally destructive and loopy belt. It plays out like a greatest-hits package of all the terrible Netflix turkeys over the years — so singularly auto-tuned, witless, charmless and mechanical that you’d think the streamer is making millions from a patented A.I. device called the Netflix Movie Trope Generator.

The Union has a premise that puts originality to sleep. It opens with the kind of American extraction mission in Italy that’s destined to blow up in their faces because everyone’s all cocky and banter-y on their earpieces. To be honest, I was rooting for a tragedy to befall them; that’s how unlikable these slick, know-it-all spies can be. The sole survivor is Roxanne Hall (Berry), a star agent with an affinity for leather clothing that absolutely attracts no attention at all. A hard-drive containing the data and identities of every covert spy and security professional ever is stolen, and so Roxy has the brainwave of recruiting Mike (Wahlberg), a rakish Jersey construction worker and ex-boyfriend from her high-school days.

He is ready after a two-week crash course in spy coolth, and together, Roxy and Mike set out to find the hard drive, attack the bad guys, and expose a possible mole within their outfit. Oh, I forgot, this outfit is called the Union, described by their boss (JK Simmons, paying his bills) as a secret blue-collar intelligence agency and “invisible army that does the dirty work to keep the world running”. Basically, the Impossible Missions Force (IMF) whose Tom Cruise is Halle Berry. It’s not as cool as it sounds. Trust me.

The problem with movies like The Union — apart from giving once-good performers like Berry another opportunity to extend her post-Oscars curse — is that they assume they’re making sense. They go out of their way to concoct a mega-stakes plot, replete with multiple heists, chemistry, twists and silly accents so that viewers take them seriously (we do not). This narrative exists in a hundred different forms — the pairing of a badass lady with a hunky noob — and the phrase “intel stolen” is about as new as Western thinkers conflating anti-zionism with antisemitism. The chases and explosions routinely happen in some picturesque European towns (not including London), as if to suggest that North America’s architecture is too industrial and ugly to be (further) destroyed in a corny action film. I can’t disagree with the sentiment, but leave Baltic Europe alone. The last thing the inhabitants of those hidden-gem countries need is a Texan tourist searching for the carbon dioxide that Berry exhaled.

Frankly, The Union is so derivative and lazy that labour unions all over the world might take offence to the title. It’s like watching a non-Marvel film by the Russo brothers, except even the actors here look like visual effects. Berry is horribly uncomfortable in her disgruntled-catwoman avatar (Roxy sees many of her team members dying but it’s like she’s incapable of feeling grief — and I don’t mean that in a numbed-spy way). But the lack of comfort is par for the course for Wahlberg, who plays a noble-hearted and womanising man-child who suddenly becomes a middle-aged cat’s whiskers. I wish I had something kind to say, but it’d be disingenuous to not hold stars like them accountable for paycheck roles. Also, the casting of Mike Colter is so self-defeating — he is killed in the first set piece (but surely that can’t be a cameo) — that even a rat can predict his return as the mole. Oops, is that a spoiler? I don’t care. You’re welcome.

There’s a funny Jersey comedy somewhere in The Union especially when Mike’s setting — his buddies, his nosy mom, an affair with his 7th-grade teacher (!) — is established at the beginning. But when Roxy meets him at a bar, flirts with him and tranquilises him at a park, it’s almost like he faints out of sheer boredom. It’s a warning sign for the audience. For the next 130 minutes, the algorithmic Netflix actioner tranquilises us, turning us into unwilling participants in their latest social experiment. I can think of worse fates. Imagine if we were trapped in a theatre screening the latest Eli Roth disaster. The Union can at least be paused, fast-forwarded and switched off — and that’s the best thing about the film.