The Union

I'm going to saddle up. Change track. Embark on a new career path, retrain. Because I'm going to be a screenwriter, I've decided. And I'm going to work exclusively for the Netflix production department. I'll be writing a lot of scripts for their upcoming blockbusters in the action-comedy genre, and I'm going to go all out on the dumbest crap I can think of. My first script will be about a short, breathless old plumber's boy who is recruited by an international spy organisation simply because his high school sweetheart of 28 years thinks he's 'decent', whereupon good and hilarious comedy ensues as this agent's own daddy longlegs is quickly schooled in the life of a spy. I will spice it up with some romance. Some clever one-liners and firefights that look like they've been plucked from The Shipping Company.

Bloody hell... I just realised that this movie already exists. It's already been made. Netflix had the exceedingly good taste to film this golden idea before I even got the shit down on paper, and as of earlier today, it's languishing among the ''new releases'' on the world's largest streaming platform. And I have, alas, just finished watching it. The Union. Which of course I should have ignored.

Heart of Stone. Lift. Man From Toronto. Red Notice. Spenser Confidential. Me Time. 6 Underground. There have been so many incredibly expensive, lavish films rolled out from Netflix's own production department (Originals) in recent years that it's almost impossible to list them without getting an acute cramp in your fingers. Most of it is based on unimaginative, stupid, thin scripts and made by directors with no vision, visual flair or personal touch and most of it looks like ugly, bad episodes of a shitty TV series.

The Union joins the crowd, without delay. The story of the failed construction worker who becomes embroiled in an international spy ring via an old, faded spark of a high school crush is so poorly written that at times it feels more like a Saturday Night Live sketch, and every character is moulded in such a nuanced, unimaginative, stereotypical way that it's easy to figure out exactly what they intend to say long before they open their mouths. Marky-Mark makes a genuine effort here to appear lost, clueless and untrained but because of poor direction and a stupid script, his rough-and-tumble working-class jerk falls flat, as does Halle Berry's spy. Halle is too old to play the role of an athletic super-agent in a credible way, rhymes more with a normal old, tired mother of several children who, with a fresh youthful haircut, makes a CIA ghost and in the process wears more variants of hats-on-three-quarters during more scenes than can be counted.

It's ugly, The Union. Lazy, ugly with horribly bad action and pointless fights that lack emotional weight, good choreography and decent camera work. I understand of course that actors like Halle, Wahlberg and especially the Oscar-winning Jk Simmons can't say no to three weeks of simple work for Netflix and a massive pay cheque, but it's just tragic what 'Netflix Originals' have become in recent years. Pure and simple rubbish.