The Union

Directed by Julian Farino, The Union follows a New Jersey construction worker (Mark Wahlberg’s Mike McKenna) as he’s roped into an international spy adventure by a mysterious ex-girlfriend (Halle Berry’s Roxanne Hall). It’s familiar yet workable subject matter that’s employed to persistently (and pervasively) generic effect by Farino, as the filmmaker, armed with a screenplay by Joe Barton and David Guggenheim, delivers a briskly-paced thriller that contains few, if any, memorable sequences or digressions – with the hopelessly bland atmosphere compounded by Wahlberg and Berry’s slick, phoned-in efforts as the one-note central characters. (Farino does, at least, elicit engaging performances from an eclectic supporting cast that includes Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Jackie Earle Haley, and J. K. Simmons.) There’s little doubt, too, that The Union‘s various action-forward interludes are hardly as engrossing or exciting as Farino has surely intended, and while the picture is basically watchable from start to finish, it is, in the end, impossible not to feel a fair amount of disappointment given the potential afforded by the stars and the agreeable premise.

*1/2 out of ****