The Union: Spy VERY lite

The Union (2024) • View trailer

Three stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for violence, sexual candor, and occasional profanity

Available via: Netflix

By Derrick Bang

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.

 

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.

This script couldn’t have filled more than a single sheet of paper ... and that’s pretty much what wound up on the screen.

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).

Marlowe: Rich, retro gumshoe ambiance

Marlowe (2022) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated R, for profanity, violence, sexual content and drug use

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang

Noir fans will love this one.

 

Director Neil Jordan, always up for a challenge, has faithfully embraced the hard-bitten realm of Raymond Chandler’s laconic, world weary private detective, Philip Marlowe.

 

Marlowe (Liam Neeson) is seasoned enough to know it's unwise to fall for a client, but
Clare Cavendish (Diane Kruger) is rather hard to resist...

William Monahan’s screenplay draws from 2014’s The Black-Eyed Blonde, a Marlowe continuation novel authorized by the Chandler estate, and written by celebrated Irish author John Banville under the pseudonym Benjamin Black, which he has adopted as a pen name for his crime novels. 

Banville’s book is set during the 1950s, as befits a case taking place after Chandler’s final novel, 1958’s Playback, wherein Marlowe acknowledges his advanced age. Jordan and Monahan’s key change bounces these events back to October 1939, the year Chandler’s first Marlowe novel — The Big Sleep — was published.

 

It could be argued that star Liam Neeson, now in his early 70s, would have been a better fit for the seasoned 1950s Marlowe … but the actor slides so smoothly into the character’s shrewdly observant, quietly sardonic PI manner, that it scarcely matters.

 

Production designer John Beard has done a remarkable job of re-creating the Southern California metropolis of Bay City, Chandler’s fictitious depiction of Santa Monica (particularly since exterior filming took place in Barcelona, Spain). As befits the smoky noir atmosphere, cinematographer Xavi Giménez makes excellent use of light, dark, shadows and reflections, particularly during the story’s many nighttime settings.

 

Events kick off when chiffon blond heiress Clare Cavendish (Diane Kruger) hires Marlowe to find her lover, Nico Peterson, who has been missing for a fortnight. Marlowe and his new client spar verbally, amid mildly flirtatious overtones; she likes it when he uses her last name as her first name. Neeson and Kruger handle this exchange smoothly, further enhancing the tone we expect from a Chandler novel.

 

Marlowe senses that Clare isn’t being entirely candid; additional information requires patience. She eventually acknowledges that her husband Richard (Patrick Muldoon) loves only “polo, alcohol, waitresses … and my money.” Even so, it would appear that Nico was more than a passing fancy.

 

With help from cop friend Joe Green (Ian Hart), Marlowe soon learns that Nico is dead, having been run over by a car while exiting the posh, gated and heavily guarded Corbata Club: playground of the rich and dissolute. Club manager Floyd Hanson (Danny Huston), when Marlowe finally wheedles an interview, is brusque and unconcerned; the accident took place on the street outside the club gates, and — therefore — isn’t his concern.