THE UNION

THE UNION is a late-summer gift from Netflix to moviegoers. It serves up blockbuster laughs and thrills that are worthy of being seen on a giant screen in a theater. The new Mark Wahlberg-Halle Berry action-comedy is one of the most entertaining Netflix original action comedies of the last several years, easily outranking this summer’s earlier BEVERLY HILLS COP: AXEL F. However, the PG-13 spy thriller has strong action violence. Sadly, it also has lots of gratuitous, necessary foul language, including several strong profanities. This content warrants extreme caution and limits the movie’s appeal to broad audiences.

Wahlberg stars as a regular-Joe, a New Jersey construction worker named Mike. Mike’s life is unexpectedly turned upside down by a visit from his high school sweetheart, Roxy (Halle Berry), after not hearing from her for 20 years. Viewers have already seen that Roxy is a member of The Union, a well-hidden branch of the US intelligence community that recruits blue-collar folks as agents who can save the world. That’s because their incognito status makes them easier to send on undercover missions.

The opening sequence finds Roxy leading a mission to capture a treasonous American spy trying to sell a devastating trove of secret information consisting of all the personal information of US law enforcement and intelligence agency operatives around the world. However, an unexpected ambush by mysterious assassins wipes out six of Roxy’s agents and the traitor himself. In addition, the world’s top black-market auctioneer has captured the stolen database.

Roxy has to stop the data from being sold to one of America’s five leading enemies, with Iran being of particular concern. Given one last chance to save the day, she shows up in a bar where Mike the construction worker is drinking. She gets Mike to let his guard down so she can inject him with a tranquilizer and whisk him away to London.

When Mike wakes up, he’s mad. However, he’s also intrigued by this chance to save the world and escape his humdrum daily existence. Soon he’s training as a super-agent. This leads up to a string of wild and wildly funny adventures with Roxy to find the database and save the world.

This plot may sound filled with well-worn cliches, but the writing and directing on THE UNION is top-notch. The dialogue is snappy, the action jaw-dropping, and the dynamic duo’s lead performances are extremely fun and thrilling to watch. On top of that, the music score by Rupert Gregson-Williams has a rich orchestral bombast mixed with some clever pop classics that provide a highly entertaining backdrop to all the action. As a result, THE UNION is a well-executed blast of summer fun that could prove perennially popular.

Even better, the movie’s moral worldview is patriotic and heroic. Mike, Roxy and their boss, Brennan (played By J.K. Simmons of the early SPIDER-MAN movies), carry on the grand cinematic tradition of gutsy Americans saving the planet at great risk to their own lives. Happily, THE UNION is utterly free of any “woke” elements or political agendas. Consequently, THE UNION is an all-too-rare example of Hollywood just letting viewers audiences have a fun time without being lectured.

The biggest downside is the movie’s profuse amount of foul language, which includes one “f” word, many “s” words and several strong profanities. The action violence is filled with shootouts, car and motorcycle chases, and plenty of hand to hand combat. However, the action scenes feel fresh and are kept refreshingly blood-free in a style more akin to James Bond and Tom Cruise’s MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE movies. THE UNION does have a few light innuendoes, though.

THE UNION is an enjoyable action movie, but the unnecessary foul language warrants extreme caution.