Life peaked in high school for Mike McKenna (Mark Wahlberg), whereas then-sweetheart Roxanne Hall (Halle Berry) managed to escape dead-end New Jersey and travel the world. While he joined the local construction workers union, she joined the Union, a clandestine spy group about whom Roxanne blandly claims, “Half the intelligence community don’t know we exist, and the other half regret finding out.”
A lazy wish-fulfillment fantasy from Netflix’s star-service department, “The Union” is actually the story of a reunion — Mike and Roxanne’s — set against the backdrop of a crisis we’ve seen one too many times in recent spy movies. For Wahlberg, the wish in question is wanting to be James Bond, which will never happen for the Dorchester-born American. And the fantasy is getting to play the next best thing, recruited by former Bond girl Halle Berry (sporting her weirdest haircut since “Swordfish,” an anime-style pixie cut, shaved on one side, spiky and blond-tipped on top).
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The movie’s big idea is to shoehorn a working-class dude into a by-the-numbers action movie, and the excuse barely holds water. Someone has stolen “information about every man and woman who has ever served a Western allied country” (which sounds a lot like the NOC list plot of the original “Mission: Impossible” movie), and to get it back, the Union needs someone not on that list. They need a nobody, and Roxanne knows just the guy for the job.
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Mike’s been drinking at the same bar ever since Roxanne dumped him, hoping she’d walk back into his life. “Is it as you imagined?” Roxanne asks when she does. “I dunno,” he says. “In my head, you were always wearing a bikini.” Just more evidence that the movie was made for 13-year-old boys, even if Wahlberg thinks he’s making this film for the blue-collar guys back home. What else could he mean when his characters says, “It’s nice seeing yourself reflected on-screen”? He’s not drinking martinis in a bespoke tuxedo, but this hardly feels like the representation that Hollywood’s been missing.
Again, this is Wahlberg’s baby, and though the plot has it the other way around, it was actually he (as producer) who enlisted Berry to play dress-up secret agents together. The two stars have known each other for decades, and that history — which translates into catty “I guess this is why we’re not still together” barbs and mildly flirtatious zingers — is the best thing about a movie that could have used a lot more screwball-comedy conflict. Instead we get generic action junkets to Trieste, London and Istria, where Mike faces such challenges as driving on the wrong side of the road and jumping from a bridge to a passing barge.
Wahlberg plays Mike as if he doesn’t want to do spy stuff, but the movie never gives him a convincing reason to come around. Maybe he would’ve joined the Union if Roxanne had been kidnapped, or if someone he knew (like Lorraine Bracco, wasted as his mom) were in danger, but as written, the character agrees because the actor playing him likes the idea. I suspect Wahlberg is also responsible for enlisting director Julian Farino (who has nearly two dozen “Entourage” episodes to his name). Comedy he can handle, but action doesn’t come naturally to the helmer, and it shows in set-pieces recycled from 007 and “Mission: Impossible” movies.
Once Mike agrees to join, the film compresses a two-week training program (already cut down from six months) into a trailer-length montage, during which he meets other Union members: top boss Tom Brennan (J.K. Simmons), combat pro Frank Preiffer (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), psych evaluator Athena Kim (Alice Lee) and an underused IT guy who calls himself “the Foreman” (Jackie Earle Haley). At times, “The Union” seems to suggest that all of these agents were once honest, hardworking stiffs like Mike — in which case, the organization’s name kinda makes sense — but if that were true, then Roxanne doesn’t fit the profile.
Or maybe she does. The trouble with “The Union” is that neither the film nor its characters have much in the way of personality, to the point it’s not even clear how they feel about one another. To reveal the villain would spoil a mild surprise, though it feels reasonable to complain about the cheap trick of insisting said baddie was once married to Roxanne. When all three characters are together, the movie intends to spark jealousy between Mike and his rival, but mostly it just freezes whatever chemistry had been heating up between the ex-high school sweethearts, as Mike finds himself friend-zoned.
In concept, there’s something inherently appealing about Berry and Wahlberg as action stars. Both have shone in the genre before: It’s hard to top Berry’s intensity in B-movie “Kidnap,” while Wahlberg does best in “Patriots Day” director Peter Berg’s real-hero portraits. In “The Union,” it’s easy to tell they’re being doubled by stunt people half the time, and when they’re not, neither actor looks very convincing — which is to say, instead of entertaining the notion that a Jersey boy can be a spy, it shatters the previously accepted idea that Wahlberg should play one.
