Wahlberg, Mark

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    ‘The Union’ Review: Old Flames and Spy Games

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    When a mission goes pear-shaped, a covert operative (Halle Berry) turns to a secret weapon: her high school boyfriend (Mark Wahlberg).The “Mission: Impossible” series went missing in action this summer, but that’s no reason to settle for Netflix’s “The Union,” a depressing illustration of the wisdom that sometimes you shouldn’t buy — or stream — generic. The movie combines a catalog of elements from the Tom Cruise franchise (supersecret agents, exotic locales, stunts) with a high-concept twist so silly it might as well have been selected by A.I.: What if — hear this out — the lead operatives happened to be former high school sweethearts?“The Union,” directed by Julian Farino, kicks off in Trieste, Italy, with a blatant retread of the first “M:I” installment: The agents are on a mission to retrieve a traitor with a stolen hard drive. Suddenly, violence breaks out, and almost the whole team is killed. A survivor from the group, Roxanne (Halle Berry), pitches her boss, Tom (J.K. Simmons), on who to turn to for help: “If he’s anything like that guy I remember,” she says, “he’s exactly who we need.”“He” is her onetime boyfriend, Mike (Mark Wahlberg), now a construction worker in New Jersey who is hooking up with their seventh-grade English teacher (Dana Delany). Roxanne hasn’t seen him in 25 years when she approaches him in a bar. His credentials are that he is, in Roxanne’s words, “a nobody”: Because of the nature of the pilfered intelligence on the drive, she and Tom need someone who has left virtually no civic footprint.Besides, their spy outfit, the Union — so covert that half the intelligence community doesn’t know it exists and the other half regrets finding out, Roxanne says, as if reciting a tagline — prefers blue-collar guys to Ivy League suits. They are, in theory, way more fun than the C.I.A. (Stephen Campbell Moore appears as a stiff from Langley.) Mike used to be a star athlete and is accustomed to spending all day on a sky-high beam. With that background, shouldn’t a three-and-half-minute training montage suffice?The other Union members are defined largely by their specialties — physical force (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), psychology (Alice Lee), computing (Jackie Earle Haley) — and the movie makes a few feeble feints at fish-out-of-water humor. (Mike may never have left the tristate area before, but does he really not know what side of the road the British drive on?)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Arthur the King’ Review: Dog Days With Mark Wahlberg

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      Wahlberg stars in this drama directed by Simon Cellan Jones, based on the true story of a Swedish adventure racer and his beloved adopted dog.“Arthur the King” — part gooey dog drama, part survivalist joyride — stars Mark Wahlberg as Michael, an American version of the Swedish adventure racer Mikael Lindnord.In 2014, Lindnord was competing in the Adventure Racing World Championships in Ecuador when a stray dog, whom he named Arthur, decided to tag along. That meant trekking through the jungle, up mountains, and across rivers, surviving on rationed meatballs and gulps of water.The film, directed by Simon Cellan Jones, is a Wahlberg production through and through: Expect some brawny athleticism and a hotheaded family man on a quest for redemption.The movie begins with Michael acting like a hypercompetitive jerk; his arrogance costs his team a big race. Three years later, Michael’s gone domestic — but a “racer’s gotta race,” he tells his wife and former teammate, Helena (Juliet Rylance). The motto inadvertently recalls the satire of “Talladega Nights,” but “Arthur” plays it mostly straight, with his teammate Leo (Simu Liu), an Instagram celebrity, as the movie’s source of comic charisma.As Michael continues to recruit the members of his new team for another big race — the expert climber Olivia (Nathalie Emmanuel), the seasoned navigator Chik (Ali Suliman) — we see Arthur roaming the streets of Santo Domingo (the film was shot in the Dominican Republic), fending off bullies, and generally looking miserable. The dog and his future master don’t join forces until nearly halfway through the film, at which point Michael and his team have already braved several obstacles, including a bracing zip-line malfunction that leaves Olivia, and two bikes, dangling from Michael’s harness.Sure, the film plays like a tourism ad for the Dominican Republic, but at least the action is palpable. And the story is typical paint-by-numbers inspirational — some bids at emotion feel awfully forced. Still, Wahlberg and company manage to hold your attention, and not just because there’s a cute dog in the frame.Arthur the KingRated PG-13 for athletic suspense and dog injuries. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘The Family Plan’ Review: Who’s Your Daddy?

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      Mark Wahlberg plays a husband and father hiding a secret identity in this breezy, entertaining action-comedy.“The Family Plan” has a familiar premise: A seemingly ordinary family man with a clandestine identity is hiding a violent past. It’s been done as farce, in “True Lies,” and as drama, in “A History of Violence,” in both instances to rousing effect. “Family Plan,” starring Mark Wahlberg as the dissembling patriarch, plays it for laughs, using his deception and its unraveling as a springboard for screwball comedy.It takes the form of an action picaresque, when Wahlberg’s Dan, a former hit man using an alias, whisks his unwitting family on a cross-country road trip, trying to evade the approaching assassins who’ve exposed his suburban ruse. Dan, his wife (Michelle Monaghan), their bickering teenagers (Zoe Colletti and Van Crosby) and their 10-month-old baby cruise from Buffalo to Vegas in their minivan, flailing through high-speed getaways and shootouts along the way.This is pretty routine material, but it’s been realized with charm and enthusiasm: The director, Simon Cellan Jones, maintains a good handle on the comic-thriller tone and shoots the action with wit and creativity, finding clever ways to integrate the diapers and BabyBjörns of fatherhood into the brisk, “John Wick”-style fight scenes. (Highlights include a whisper-quiet car chase set to Enya’s “Only Time” and some grocery store kung fu involving an infant.)Wahlberg is more charismatic than he’s been onscreen in nearly a decade, and his chemistry with Monaghan is the foundation of a plausible marriage — they keep the domestic aspect grounded, even as the assassin stuff gets a touch ludicrous. The great Ciaran Hinds is the villain, appearing to enjoy himself as much as everybody else. He, too, understood the assignment: Have fun.The Family PlanRated PG-13. Running time: 1 hour 58 minutes. Watch on Apple TV+. More

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      ‘Me Time’ Review: In Search of Lost Dad Jokes

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      Kevin Hart and Mark Wahlberg star in this boys’ night out comedy that fails to find its laughs.The hero of the uneasy comedy “Me Time” begins the movie in a flashback, in free-fall. Sonny (Kevin Hart) has just tried to bail on a day of wingsuit gliding with his longtime friend Huck (Mark Wahlberg), but a burst of propelled air has sent him plummeting down the side of the cliff face. Huck dives after, guiding his friend away from certain death. Sonny is saved, but the movie never shakes off this initial sense of panic.In the present, Sonny is a stay at home dad, whose wife Maya (Regina Hall) is a prominent architect. Sonny fears that he doesn’t measure up to his accomplished spouse, and so he brings an overachiever’s anxiety to parenting. With tension at home, Maya offers to take the kids away for a vacation, so Sonny can take a break from superdad duties.Sonny uses his solo time to join in his old friend Huck’s birthday celebrations, and he finds himself drawn into Huck’s daredevil ways. Together, they indulge in a boys’ night binge of bad behavior. They break into the house of Maya’s most solicitous client, engage in a bacchanal at Sonny’s home and, most damningly, Sonny lends Huck some of his family’s money.“Me Time” is written and directed by John Hamburg, and his movie attempts to include domestic conversations that speak to the lives of men who keep house. But this boys’ night out is light on the wisecracks, pratfalls and gags that might produce laughs. There is a flatness that feels apparent in every shot — and not just because the movie is filmed in bright, low contrast lighting. The film’s experienced cast punches their lines in search of jokes that never materialize, leaving the comedy to nosedive.Me TimeRated R for language, drug references, sexual references and brief nudity. Running time: 1 hour 41 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

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      ‘Father Stu’ Review: Screwball Salvation

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      Mark Wahlberg throws himself into the real-life story of an oddball priest in Rosalind Ross’s debut feature.Mark Wahlberg dials himself up to 11 in “Father Stu,” a never-say-die story of religious redemption and all-American hustle. Wahlberg’s career is full of characters who totally believe in their own game, and here, he throws himself into the oddball role of Stuart Long — a Montana boxer turned beloved priest who developed a degenerative muscle disease and died at 50.Three movies’ worth of underdog hooks fuel Wahlberg as the story winds him up and watches him go. Stu boxes until his jaw cries uncle; heads to Hollywood to be a star; converts to Catholicism to woo a devout woman (Teresa Ruiz as Carmen); nearly dies in a projectile motorcycle crash; and enters the seminary to become a priest. As if that wasn’t enough drama, Mel Gibson and Jacki Weaver play his trash-talking, separated parents.Rosalind Ross, a writer directing her debut feature, and Wahlberg buck the expectations of the religious-salvation story by mostly keeping it light and barely taking a breath, with an extra nudge from a country-heavy soundtrack. (It’s no surprise that Wahlberg previously tried to develop Long’s story with David O. Russell, the director of the screwball existential comedy “I Heart Huckabees.”)Stu’s travails feed into his salty homilies about getting closer to God, delivered with Wahlberg’s usual bluffness. That doesn’t automatically translate into a religious experience, and watching the movie can feel like a two-hour hearty handshake. But judging from the audience member at a preview screening who sang along with the credits song, it’s all part of the movie’s appeal.Father StuRated R for salty irreverence throughout. Running time: 2 hour 4 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Uncharted’ Review: Steal, Fight, Repeat

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      This inaptly titled treasure-hunt adventure recycles all the familiar clichés while giving Tom Holland a strenuous physical workout.At least give Sony credit for recycling. That is the best that can be said for its nitwit treasure-hunt movie “Uncharted,” an amalgam of clichés that were already past their sell-by date when Nicolas Cage plundered the box office in Disney’s “National Treasure” series. Now, it is Tom Holland’s turn to cash in with a musty story about ancient loot, old maps, lost ships, invisible ink and a wealthy scoundrel with disposable minions. But while he’s following in Cage’s inimitable footsteps, Holland also seems in training to become Tom Cruise 2.0.The similarities between “Uncharted” and the first “National Treasure” are notable, with both movies adhering to the same booty-questing template. Each opens with a flashback of the protagonist as a wee lad eagerly being primed for adventure by an older male relative, a misty rite of passage that seems calculated to put a family-friendly stamp on an otherwise greed-driven setup. In “National Treasure,” the kid soon becomes a character played by Cage, whose singular, offbeat performance style can elevate and disrupt crummy material.In “Uncharted,” the boy grows up to become a neo-buccaneer played by the boyish Holland, a likable, exuberantly physical performer who has traded his Spider-Man responsibilities for more old-school heroic duty. The Hollywood action movie seems an open field right now partly because most of the male stars who headline non-comic-book blockbusters are middle-aged or older. Holland is 25. He’s cute without being threatening or distractingly, Chalamet-esquely beautiful, and has enough presence and training (dance, gymnastics, parkour) that he can bluff and breeze past clichés while gracefully bouncing through fights and obstacles.Cruise will be 61 when the next “Mission: Impossible” finally (maybe) opens in July 2023. He’s likely to keep going Energizer Bunny-style for years to come. Still, the paucity of young male actors who have the profile, credits and skill set to sell studio goods like “Uncharted” may prove a lucrative opportunity for Holland and his treasure-seeking handlers. At any rate that may explain the images of his character, Nate Drake, a thief who moonlights as a bartender (or vice versa), pulling some smooth moves on the job, a bit of juggling tomfoolery that instantly triggers images of Cruise in “Cocktail.”Soon enough, though, Nate leaves behind his gig and his New York pad for an international escapade that he embarks on in tandem with Mark Wahlberg’s Sully, a more experienced, openly untrustworthy thief. A veteran of workaday blockbusters, Wahlberg serves twinned functions here as a presold pop-culture brand and an archetypal mentor for Nate. Sully can sprint, fight and trade unfunny quips without breaking a sweat, and Wahlberg is just fine delivering the same gruff, regular-guy performance that he always does. He shares top billing with Holland, but Wahlberg is largely onboard as training wheels for the younger actor.“Uncharted” is based on a PlayStation game of the same name that first hit in 2007 and that tracks the globe-trotting doings of its Everyman hero, said to be descended from the British privateer Sir Francis Drake. The movie, directed by Ruben Fleischer, nods to the game and Sir Francis, who circumnavigated the globe in the 16th century and was instrumental in England’s challenge to Spain. Given the current climate, though, it’s a surprise that the movie didn’t quietly ignore Sir Francis, who participated in establishing the slave trade. In 2020, a statue of Sir Francis in Britain was draped in chains with a sign reading “decolonize history.”Hollywood’s penchant for ignoring inconvenient historical truths means that the movie leans into Sir Francis’s globe-trotting and plundering as well as his fight against the Spanish, in this case through the proxy figure of Santiago Moncada (Antonio Banderas). A Barcelona moneybags, Santiago is out to enhance his fortune with the same treasure that Nate and Sully are chasing. It’s a bit of a bummer to see Banderas back in this type of throwaway role, though presumably stars can’t live on Pedro Almodóvar movies alone. Mostly, Banderas handsomely scowls, barks orders and helps keep the machinery chugging.For his part, Nate grins and grimaces, runs and leaps, nimbly going through many of the same action-movie paces that heroic avatars have long gone through. He also types on a computer keyboard, wears a tux at a fancy party à la James Bond and flirts with a romantic foil, Chloe (Sophia Ali). Like the movie’s scariest baddie, Braddock (Tati Gabrielle), Chloe is one of those tough — but sexy! — female characters who’s more physically in the mix than she would have been in the past, back when the love interest was played by the blonde du jour. But while Chloe and Braddock are clearly adding something new to the same old story, they’re still performing the same old roles for yet another Hollywood male contender.UnchartedRated PG-13 for relatively bloodless death and violence. Running time: 1 hour 56 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Infinite’ Review: Stuck in a Loop

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      Antoine Fuqua’s formulaic reincarnation thriller is weighed down by déjà vu.There’s an early scene in “Infinite,” Antoine Fuqua’s sci-fi thriller on Paramount+, that feels like an outtake from a social-issue drama. Mark Wahlberg’s Evan McCauley attends a job interview at a restaurant, where the slimy proprietor grills him about his past struggles with mental health before dismissing him rudely. “Who’s going to hire a diagnosed schizophrenic with a history of violence?” a dejected Evan wonders in voice-over as he walks back home. I was disarmed by the human-size pathos of this scene: Evan’s got bills to pay and pills to buy, same as us all. More