the good-good/bad-bad alignment matrix
where does The Union (2024) fall?
look yeah, binaries suck. they’re unrefined and reductionist. but when you’re working with something as limited as language as a conduit for articulating the infinite expression of the human experience, it’s probably no wonder our species feels so compelled to split everything into two. maybe every binary descends from the philosophical lineage of mankind’s most simple thought: all that exists is me (the personal, the internal, the bodily) and you (aka everything existing outside of me).
the ancient principle of the yin yang shows chinese culture at least has the wisdom to comprehend polar opposites as interconnected to a greater whole, with aspects of one forever present in the other. western culture has no organising concept so nuanced. just “hell bad, heaven good” and vibes.
thus… there are bad movies and good movies. but if you are a true, nonconformist sophisticant like me… you know intimately that more exists. prepare yourself to become a devout believer in the bad-bad/good-good alignment matrix:
bad-bad movies
example: Rebel Moon (2023) (part 1? part 2? dealer’s bloody choice tbh)
a bad-bad movie is a film that sets itself a target–could be action, could be romance–and fails to deliver on the necessary cinematic journey in all the ways that matter. and boy does Rebel Moon fail. just really craps the bed. it’s painfully derivative of the sci-fi franchise that it was conceived to be a part of and a perfect embodiment of why the pitch failed. i schlepped through approximately 4 hours and thought, Disney did the big one rejecting this shit almost every other scene.
Snyder’s fetish for slow-motion action drags a banal plot that feels like it was lifted from the balled-up paper pile in Frank Herbert’s bin when he was trying to figure out the logistics of Dune. There’s a pathological reliance on expositional flashbacks that truncates any real opportunity for the audience to connect with its rolling roster of forgettable characters, fuelled further by some even more forgettable acting performances. when i started bedroom cinema club, i made a vow to never hate-write a full article about any film. i almost snapped that vow over my fucking knee when i heard that homeboi wanted to release a director’s edition of these films. broski… i promise you, it ain’t Snyder-cutting it this time.
good-good movies
example: Nope (2022)
good-good movies are absolute masterpieces on every level (disclaimer: I was gonna put Moonlight (2017) here and just say, “need I say more?” but nah, man – let’s chat about Nope). i’ve written about this film before but i feel like i’m crazy because the way it isn’t held in much higher regard is what lets me know that we’re civilisationally cooked. Peele’s ability to build adjacent but supposedly unrelated (dare I say, alienated) narratives in compelling ways, then threads them metaphorically through the philosophical themes of animalistic spectacle, late-stage capitalism and anti-Blackness makes for an mind-melter of film. a quintessential good-good movie for its ability to balance thinking cappery with excellent comedic timing. where else will you see such a mastery of directing that visualises the bone-chilling sequence of an alien gruesomely feasting on a human crowd by basically just putting a bunch of people under a pink children’s parachute. the technological innovation brought about for Nope’s night shots, the fascinating conceptualisation of alien life as Iris Van Herpian all while providing humour and horror and hype:
bad-good movies
a bad-good film is one that either a) sets out to do something and fails but we have fun along the way or b) sets out to do something, achieves it, but does so in the least compelling way possible. maybe, these are best communicated as squandered potential films.
…Tenet (2019).
awesome film (theoretically). Christopher Nolan has perfected the art of the action sequence to the point where they feel genetically engineered to tickle the ooga-booga caveman pleasure centres of the brain. but c’mon. this shit is confusing as fuck. like…. i think, i get it (?) but i also believe with each ventricle of my tiny grinch heart that there’s actually nothing you’re supposed to “get”. every good decision in this film is diametrically opposed to a confusing one. Göransson’s fascinating, horological music score is mixed with the diegetic audio in such a way where important stretches of dialogue are just straight up drowning in synths. the detached stylistic tone is cool aesthetically, maybe even necessary thematically but it left me wanting emotionally. i don’t believe that Nolan can make a bad-bad film. like, physically. i’d sooner bet that mankind develops a way to naturally breathe underwater. but Tenet is probably the most enjoyable cinematic spectacle that I wouldn’t wanna watch again.
another example of a bad-good film is Queen and Slim (2019). Queen and Slim could be a good-good film… if it didn’t wuss out and wreck its own ending. Queen and Slim is probably the worst bad-good film I have ever seen in my life. it makes me sick to my stomach, fam!!
good-bad movies
and here they come. the doozies. good-bad movies are films ya hate to love. the 2am doner complete with a suspicious crunch that could be a stray, over-cooked chip… or it could be something, nay, anything else of a similar texture yet you just keep on chewing cos the kebab is hitting. transcendent junk food cinema. guilty, visual pleasures that, if you confessed to the right lover at the wrong time, would infect them with such an aggressive case of “the ick” that it’d shatter their rose-tint of your burgeoning romance, potentially causing an implosion of the whole relationship.
with that said, beloveds…
i frigging love kevin hart movies.
i refuse to pretend i’m above them. i want him to do more. ten to fifteen a year. forever. capture his likeness in ai so they can keep coming even from beyond the grave. (that’s kind of ghoulish even for me. let’s not get political about ai, shall we? light and breezy).
he’ll always be able to count on me. wanna drop your fiftyleventh buddy movie with The Rock? sign me up. a ridiculous action blockbuster with bad cgi and a female lead who needed the check and is visibly giving 65% of her acting ability? take my money. a peacock miniseries confusingly turned into a movie? you son of a bitch, I’m in. they’re like perfect turn-your-brain-off-and-dunk-it-in-an-epsom-salt-bath nuggets of content. are they mid? maybe. but maybe, just maybe, thanos was right. maybe, sometimes mid is just a synonym for:
sure, disclosing the wrong good-bad movie might scare off the love of your life but this is where the pulp of one’s personality is formed. indulging good-bad movies is to practise a healthy relationship to self. the human experience is too vast, too complicated, too tantalising to only suckle the teet of excellence. sometimes, a really good portion of french fries can be one of the great marvels of the cosmos, if you let it.
…this has been a gratuitous amount of set-up.
The Union (2024) is a textbook copaganda comedy thriller about Mike, (Mark Wahlberg) a New Jersey construction worker who’s thrust into a spy conspiracy when his long-lost high school sweetheart, Roxanne (Halle Berry) drugs and kidnaps recruits him for an espionage mission. and I adored every minute.
if someone were to call The Union generic, i wouldn’t disagree. it’s not winning a palme d’or. but what I enjoy about the film – what makes it a great, bad film – is that it feels like a film that is perfectly aware of what it is. it does middling so well. where else am I gonna get a scene of J.K Simmons expositing the valiant, covert agency of true-blue, world-saving operatives disguised as everyday layman like he’s Agent Kay from Men in Black (1997)?
it is as if the writers of The Union read Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You'll Ever Need and immediately wrote a screenplay uncritically adhering to every single principle from the 2005 bestseller.
yet, the formulaic rigidity of this film is a memory-foam mattress level of comforting. probably a symptom of my own neurodivergence, ay?
an example: we are introduced to Mike after he’s, like, totally boned the woman who taught him 7th grade English. this is meant to be a bad-ass moment that establishes the masculine dominance of our protagonist! we’re following a real macho man fulfilling his teenage self’s fantasies! hell yeah! …then he goes downstairs to find the english teacher’s son, a grown man and, i assume, a former high-school classmate, casually eating breakfast. he’s a bank manager now, respectfully unconcerned with the boudoir-bound escapades of his sexually liberated mother. the two men’s cordiality only adds to the laughable bizarreness of Mike the main character as the question tenderly befalls our lips: wtf are you doing with your life, bro?
…which is what we’re meant to feel! an absolute masterclass of a flawed, tragic hero.
luckily, roxanne arrives to save him from his somewhat doomed life that he actually enjoys a lot and that is actually quite quaint and wholesome. their chemistry has zero covalent bonds (no idea if that joke bangs scientifically) and Wahlberg’s inability to emote in any scene, but especially one meant to mark a flirtatious reunion, only adds to the riveting precariousness of this cinematic experience.
later, after Halle Berry has hoisted the bulk of the choreographed action sequences on her back, there’s a scene where Mike expresses how crazy this entire scenario is. a rare moment of vulnerability that, again, deposits no emotional registration on his face whatsoever. suddenly, the conversation pivots towards Mike’s racist father. a major factor, it seems, in why Roxanne did a runner on him all those years ago. the primordial mammoth in the room is addressed. because we were just wondering why this dynamic duo didn’t become the king and queen of new jersey. asked and answered. this film sets up the dominoes up and knocks ‘em down with the subtle thoroughness of a sledgehammer.
by the time we get to the obligatory car chase, we barely notice the absurdity of Mike being flung from hood of a speeding mercedes benz, landing directly into the open trunk of a parked taxi, shutting him inside as the briefcase he’s holding cartoonishly flies into the air and lands on the ground for the bad guy to leisurely retrieve. they truly don’t make em’ like this any more.
and you know what, maybe they should!
maybe, our failure as a dopamine-craving, superhero-worshipping, star-wars-diversity-hating modern audience is that we want a conveyor belt churning out individually specific representations of greatness directly into our mouths at all times. what if we just lowered the bar, man? what if we just… grab some butterkist popcorn from the local offie on a friday night, maybe a cheeky kebab on the way if you’re that way inclined, sit down and tune into The Union, attentively recognising its flaws and loving it anyway.
I think Halle Berry deserves that much.
I didn’t see The Union but I liked this review so much I might see it now, with realistic expectations. I loved Nope, I’m a huge Jordan Peele fan; I’ve walked onto that set a few times now. They kept it up in the Universal backlot so if you ever visit L.A., it’s almost walking distance from the Psycho house (I’m serious) and around the corner from the Bates Motel. Did you like Us?