The bar is getting awfully low, when it comes to spy thrillers.
Writers Joe Barton and David Guggenheim didn’t do much to earn their keep; you won’t find a single original thought here. Their barely-there premise lifts clichés from countless other (superior) films, adding just enough plot to justify the requisite half-dozen action and chase sequences.
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| Although every attempt to stay ahead of countless unspecified attackers fails miserably, Mike (Mark Wahlberg) and Roxanne (Halle Berry) always survive to fight another day. |
Events kick off during a prologue, as seasoned operatives Roxanne Hart (Halle Berry) and Nick Faraday (Mike Colter) lead a team to capture a guy planning to auction a suitcase that contains a priceless whatzit. The operation goes south; Roxanne’s entire team is killed, along with their target, and unspecified Bad Guys get away with the suitcase.
(We never know who any of these adversaries are, or for whom they work; they’re simply Black-Clad Bad Guys who arrive in Black Cars and Black Helicopters.)
Turns out Roxanne works for The Union, which — stop me, if you’ve heard this before — tackles worldwide catastrophes that other U.S. government spy agencies aren’t able to handle.
(“The Union”? Seriously? That sounds like a labor organization. Would it have been asking too much, for Barton and Guggenheim to come up with a catchy acronym?)
The sought-after whatzit is a computer file that contains a list of every individual working for Western-allied agencies throughout the world: CIA, FBI, MI5 and MI6, France’s DGSE, and so forth.
(One wonders how such a list could have been assembled. Do they all subscribe to the same magazine? Share the same Amazon shopping account?)
Those in possession of the suitcase intend to sell it to the highest bidder, during a black-market auction. Union head honcho Tom Brennan (J.K. Simmons) hopes to put one of his own “friendly” bidders in play, to surmount offers from five international bad actors: China, North Korea, Syria, Russia and Iran. But since all active agents would be recognized — due to the aforementioned list — this “friendly” must be some sort of regular guy.
Which — and this is an awfully big leap — makes Roxanne think of her former high school boyfriend, Mike McKenna (Mark Wahlberg), who remained in New Jersey and is employed as a blue-collar bridge worker. Wahlberg doesn’t need to stretch, since such roles have become his signature: a hard-working, hard-partying good ol’ boy with a solid moral compass and limited ambition.
He's also sleeping with his seventh-grade school teacher: a “gag” that doesn’t begin to work (and suffers more from repetition).
Although flirty sparks fly when Roxanne finds Mike at his favorite bar, she doesn’t waste time with long-winded explanations; she simply drugs and kidnaps him. Mike wakens in London, is whisked into Union HQ, and apprised of the situation.
Naturally, he agrees ... but only because he’s still in love with Roxanne. (Saving the free world apparently wasn’t quite enough incentive.) Cue an intense, two-week training session montage — set against Fletcher C. Johnson’s appropriately uplifting “Messin’ Up My Mind” — after which he’s ready for action!
R-i-g-h-t.
Participating in the auction turns out to be a two-step process; Mike first must meet an intermediary, and purchase a “device” — a smart phone coded with auction instructions — for $5 million. Alas, that operation goes south, then this goes wrong, then that goes wrong, and so forth.
Despite Mike and Roxanne’s best efforts, unspecified Black-Clad Bad Guys always turn up to spoil the fun. (Honestly, it’s like they get engraved invitations.) Stunt coordinator Slavisa Ivanovic and fight coordinator Adam Brashaw earn their keep, but although the numerous action sequences are serviceable, none stands out.
Jessica De Gouw joins the fray in the third act, as femme fatale Juliet Quinn, in charge of supervising the auction. Again, we’ve no idea who pulls her strings, even after a climactic twist which is this script’s sole clever touch.
The degree to which this nonsense succeeds results from sheer star power. Wahlberg and Berry work well together, and they add more dramatic heft than their puerile dialogue deserves. Simmons, always a welcome presence, takes his Top Dog role quite seriously; Brennan sounds and acts persuasively.
Brennan’s team also includes tech genius Foreman (Jackie Earle Haley), planning specialist Athena Kim (Alice Lee), and physical trainer Frank Preiffer (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje). All three actors deliver likable performances.
To his credit, director Julian Farino didn’t take any of these spyjinks seriously, and the jokey atmosphere makes the random, wafer-thin plot more palatable. Given the proper frame of mind, The Union can be enjoyed as unsophisticated fun.
It certainly isn’t the worst way to spend 107 minutes during a popcorn-fueled evening.
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