If there’s anything more awkward than world-famous movie stars contorting themselves into strenuous demonstrations of relatability, it’s when a movie star seems insistent on having it all – that is, contorting themselves into quasi-relatability, then pausing to remind the audience how kickass they are. I would imagine that Mike, the Jersey guy that Mark Wahlberg plays in his new domestication-action picture The Union, has been designed to flex what Wahlberg or his handlers must consider his Q-rating strengths. Mark, er, Mike is an unpretentious regular Joe who still shows loyalty to his high school buddies as he drifts amiably through his low-stakes life, until his old high school flame Roxanne (Halle Berry) turns up to recruit him into a secret organization that turns regular working-class guys into spies, the better to hide in plain sight while getting things done. See, the Union – its organized-labor connotation is one of the movie’s few moments of mild wit – seeks out people with “street smarts, not book smarts,” as one character describes it. Apparently unsure if this description is laying it on too thick, the screenwriters elaborate: “blue collar, not blue blood.”
Luckily, Roxanne remembers and recognizes Mike’s enormous potential in the vague areas of, uh, being blue collar and not reading, and he’s a conveniently quick study in the more specific ones: speed, reflexes, shooting, performance driving. Why is he so good at everything? Perhaps it’s supposed to be a stand-in for the untapped skills of so many regular folks, who could approach Ethan Hunt levels if only they secretly abided by Mark Wahlberg’s insane workout regimen but pretended to be beer-drinking bros in order to stay grounded. This cocktail of self-and-audience flattery (I’m just like you! And I’m great, so you must be too!) is unnervingly reminiscent of the worst instincts of Adam Sandler comedies, complete with an early, Sandler-esque gag about Wahlberg bedding an older woman (played by Dana Delany, no less) that’s supposed to be self-deprecating but still manages to serve as a tribute to his character’s sexual prowess and, as a bonus, a fucked-your-mom bit of ballbusting.
More common ground that Wahlberg shares with the Sandman: It takes a delicate measurement of particular ingredients to generate even the hint of chemical reaction between him and an actress hired for the express purpose of looking at him all moony-eyed. The paycheck alone does not suffice as a chemical shortcut for Berry, who spends most of the movie looking like she’s good-naturedly humoring her co-star. Wahlberg has been holding sexuality at arm’s length for most of the time since he got off that rollercoaster in Fear (give or take a Boogie Nights), and he doesn’t have an easy way with conveying genuine attraction, or really any interest in his opposite-sex scene partners beyond what they’re reflecting about him (even as the movie nudges him on by having, for example, his gaggle of male friends disappear without a trace as soon as Roxanne enters the bar where they’ve been hanging out).
As Mike and Roxanne embark upon the obligatory urgent mission, supervised by their gruff leader (J.K. Simmons), you keep waiting for The Union to draw out some long-deferred romantic longing between the two, either a bittersweet reconnection with the one who got away, or an exhilarating spark returning after a long absence, enlivened by mission banter. Instead, the pair…seems to moderately enjoy each other’s company. Accordingly, that’s the best anyone watching The Union will get out of it, if they’re in a mood to forgive and forget. (The movie makes the forgetting part easy, at least.)
This un-fizzy flatness could be chalked up to the much-chronicled contemporary cinematic aversion to romance in areas where it was once commonplace: action, sci-fi, comedy and so on. But in this case, it feels like part of a larger, more baffling tension-reduction strategy that mutes The Union at every turn, from its poor-man’s-Mission: Impossible opening (augmented with music that sounds like a Christopher Nolan temp track) to the weirdly blasé romantic relationship to a stakes-raising character death that plays maybe a half-step more dramatic than a random killing. Even the stupid little keeping-him-humble subplot about whether Mike will get back to Jersey in time to deliver a wedding toast has been lacquered over with a kind of numb indifference.
The movie looks lacquered, too, to the point where its supposedly international location shooting and gap-filling green-screen work feel indistinguishable – in the bad direction, where it all leans toward the cheaply green-screened, rather than seamlessly applying some effects to the illusion of globetrotting. The movie lacks flash or even competence at every turn: Director Julian Farino has worked extensively in sitcoms, yet the movie can’t be bothered to milk a farcical scene where Mike, during a chase, winds up on stage of a Peter Pan revival in London’s West End. Cinematographer Alan Stewart has shot multiple recent Guy Ritchie movies, but can’t capture the capering slickness of The Gentlemen or Operation Fortune. How did all of this happen – or, really, fail to happen? The movie seems to pre-suppose that in our desperation to spend time with Wahlberg and Berry, any empty stupid simulacra will suffice as an excuse. At the same time, The Union has been pieced together as if star power is a second language that its filmmakers (including Wahlberg himself) can’t decipher. Wahlberg has given some wonderful performances in the past, though more often as a supporting player or character actor than a lead. If this is his idea of comic-heroic relatability, though, it’s hard not to wonder whether he regards his seemingly loyal following as a yawning void.
Director: Julian Farino
Writer: David Guggenheim and Joe Barton
Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Halle Berry, J.K. Simmons, Mike Colter, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Jackie Earle Haley, Alice Lee
Release Date: August 16, 2024
Jesse Hassenger is associate movies editor at Paste. He also writes about movies and other pop-culture stuff for a bunch of outlets including A.V. Club, GQ, Decider, the Daily Beast, and SportsAlcohol.com, where he also has a podcast. Following @rockmarooned on Twitter is a great way to find out about what he’s watching or listening to, and which terrifying flavor of Mountain Dew he has most recently consumed.
