Julian Farino's film "The Union" opens in Trieste, Italy, with an obvious parody of the first "M:I" episode: With a stolen hard drive, the agents are on a quest to find and capture a traitor.
In addition, their spy group, the Union, is so secretive that only half of the intelligence community is aware of it and regrets learning about it.
The plot device of "The Union" is that, although being an action movie, it's also a comedy about Roxanne and Mike getting married again, with the exception of the screenwriters.
All of the government personnel in the West, including troops, police officers, and FBI agents, have had their personal information compromised by hackers.
The mission to recover the hack is being led by Agent Roxanne and her fast-talking employer Tom (J.K. Simmons) in order to keep it out of the wrong hands.
The inability of "The Union" to surpass either extreme of its genre-defining attempt at action-comedy results in tonal whiplash. Most of the action is not noteworthy.
Rather than true, inspired laughter, its clumsy humorous attempts elicit semi-indignant smirks and irritated chuckles.