UNION, THE
(director: Julian Farino; screenwriters: Joe Barton, David Guggenheim; cinematographer: Alan Stewart; editor: Pia Di Ciaula; music: Rupert Gregson-Williams; cast:Mark Wahlberg (Mike McKenna), Halle Berry (Roxanne Hall), J.K. Simmons (Tom Brennan), Mike Colter (Nick Faraday), Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (Frank Preiffer), Jessica De Gouw (Juliet Quinn), Alice Lee (Athena Kim), Jackie Earle Haley (Foreman), Lorraine Bracco (Lorraine McKenna), Dana Delany (Nicole), Patch Darragh (Bobby Breslin), James McMenamin (Johnny Healy), Juan Carlos Hernandez (Billy Lewis), Stephen Campbell Moore (Cameron Foster); Runtime: 106; MPAA Rating: PG-13; producers: Stephen Levinson, Mark Wahlberg, Jeff G. Waxman; Netflix; 2024)
“Those taken with the star leads and who do not mind if the story strains credibility, should like it.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
A mediocre spy story directed by the veteran Brit television director, Julian Farino (“The Child in Time”/”The Oranges”). The sketchy screenplay is written in a formulaic way by Joe Barton and David Guggenheim, who churn out a forgettable story that’s buoyed by a very good cast, great exotic scenic locations and enough humor to give you a few laughs intentional or unintentional.
In the Union, the CIA needs to find someone not known in the spy world to extract government intel taken by a CIA defector in Trieste.
Mike McKenna (Mark Wahlberg) is a mild-mannered, middle-aged, blue-collar construction worker still living with his mom (Lorraine Bracco) in his hometown in New Jersey. While drinking in a bar with his buddies, his old flame from high school, Roxanne (Halle Berry), sexily dressed in leather, walks into the bar and surprises him. Despite not seeing each other for 25 years they have no trouble conversing. It turns out she’s a covert CIA operator who drugs him and brings him to London. When he wakes up at the Savoy Hotel, her boss, Tom Brennan (J.K. Simmons), tells him he’s the ‘nobody’ they’re looking for, who can’t be traced, and is recruited by the CIA for a dangerous mission to retrieve classified data that got into the wrong hands when a CIA agent defected.
The team helping our boy include the medical expert Athena (Alice Lee), combat specialist Frank (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), and the techie Foreman (Jackie Earle Haley). Mike must go through a training period that takes place in well-known London landmarks.
When Mike proves he’s up for the job, he goes with Roxanne to a picturesque seaside village and they rekindle their romance while on the mission.
It smoothly leads to an action-filled climax (with lots of stunt work). Those taken with the star leads and who do not mind if the story strains credibility, should like it. Others may find its plot too incredulous.
REVIEWED ON 8/20/2024 GRADE: C +
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