Life. What's the point, anyway? As I was sitting through the two-hour trainwreck called ‘The Union,’ the meaning of life (or the lack thereof) was painfully clear. Imagine combining the thrill of a dental appointment with the excitement of watching paint dry—that's ‘The Union’ for you.
Directed by some guy who probably wishes he wasn’t, ‘The Union’ starts in Italy—or was it Detroit painted to look Italian? Anyway, the ‘spy’ plot quickly unfolds like a cheap lawn chair. The opening scene attempts remembrance of ‘Mission: Impossible’ if Tom Cruise were replaced by your eccentric Uncle Bob who thinks spy games involve hiding the TV remote.
Enter Roxanne, played by someone who once dreamed of being a star but now finds joy in infomercials. She’s on a wild goose chase after her high school crush, Mike, portrayed by an actor whose name escapes me—something like Mark or Matt, definitely something with an M. Mike is now a rugged construction worker, which is evidently a prime recruitment criteria for low-budget spy operations, especially if the world-saving mission involves unclogging a sewer.
Their mission? To retrieve a hard drive filled with world-endangering recipes for explosive meatloaf. Yes, meatloaf. The kind that makes you ponder existential crises—like, should I exist in a world where this film does?
In a climax as thrilling as watching a sloth nap, the duo confronts the villain, a forgotten seventh-grade English teacher who turns out to be a mastermind in boring people to death, literally—a fate I narrowly escaped.
So here I am, writing this and thinking about the sweet embrace of the void. But before I go planning my solo funeral (a festive event with clowns and sad trombones, because why not), let me leave you with this thought: If laughter is the best medicine, ‘The Union’ might just cure insomnia. Now, isn’t that a killer joke?
Based on the original article "‘The Union’ Review: Old Flames and Spy Games".
