The Union follows a regular construction worker who is unexpectedly drawn into working for a secret agency. The film is now streaming on Netflix.
Warning: This article contains heavy spoilers
Plot summary
Mike is a construction worker in New Jersey, living the same life he had in high school; he still has the same friends and the same house.
One day, he runs into his ex-girlfriend, Roxanne Hall, whom he dated in high school. They broke up because of Mike’s racist father.
Roxanne then went to college, but she was expelled after a violent altercation with a man who drugged her best friend on a date.
Since then, Roxanne has not been in touch with Mike. Unbeknownst to him, she now works for a secret agency called the Union.
When they meet again after twenty-five years, Roxanne and Mike reminisce about old times. Then, Roxanne suddenly knocks him out and takes him to London, where Mike is introduced to Tom Brennan, Roxanne’s boss.
Tom explains that the Union recruits street-smart people from essential city jobs. Their agents form an invisible army and handle missions similar to those of the CIA.
The Union wants to recruit Mike, so Roxanne and Tom bring him to their headquarters. They brief him on their last mission, which involved catching a CIA turncoat in Trieste, Italy.
The mission went wrong, and all the Union agents, except Roxanne, were killed. The CIA turncoat had critical information, which is now in the possession of a woman named Juliet Quinn.
The information pertains to every person who has ever served a Western-allied country, from local police to secret agencies, putting them all at risk.
The information is set to be sold at a black market auction in London in two weeks, and the Union needs someone who has never served before to retrieve it, which is why they want Mike for the mission.
After some consideration, Mike agrees to join the mission instead of returning to his old life. He undergoes two weeks of training before the mission begins.
Mike’s first task is to pay Juliet to buy an encrypted device that would allow him to bid remotely at the blind auction.
He succeeds in buying the device but is attacked by other parties who prefer to eliminate their competition rather than outbid them.
Although Roxanne’s team protects Mike, the device gets damaged when it falls into a sink during a fight. As Mike’s task is now complete, Tom asks Roxanne to send him back to the US.
However, Mike insists on staying to see the mission through, determined to prove that Roxanne was right to choose him, and Roxanne agrees.
Mike continues working with her team, who manage to steal the device bought by the North Koreans for the auction, but their relief is short-lived.
A member of Roxanne’s team is killed, and the Union headquarters are attacked, indicating that there is a traitor within the agency.
Roxanne and Mike take refuge in a safe house, where Mike manages to make Roxanne smile despite everything that has happened.
The next day, they regroup with Tom and the others at a temporary Union headquarters before the auction. The CIA is providing the financial resources needed for the auction.
During the auction, the Union will track Juliet using the stolen device and send Roxanne and Mike to catch her. This time, the plan goes smoothly, and Roxanne and Mike catch Juliet.
It is then that Roxanne’s husband, Nick Faraday, a Union agent presumed dead during the Trieste mission, suddenly reappears.
Mike is shocked and disappointed to learn that Roxanne never told him about Nick, who claims that he survived his injuries and has been working to find the traitor within the Union.
He now informs Roxanne and Mike that the traitor is none other than Tom. As a result, Roxanne agrees to withhold the information from Tom and hand it over to the CIA the next day.
However, she and Mike have an argument about Nick, with Roxanne belittling Mike’s life and saying that she saved him by giving him the opportunity to be part of something bigger.
Hurt and frustrated, Mike decides to leave, but after talking to his friends, he realizes that he cannot abandon the mission until it is over.
He returns to help Roxanne hand over the information to the CIA, only for them to discover that it was all a setup by Nick.
Nick is the real traitor, not Tom. He has been working with Juliet, who swapped the bag containing the information with a fake the night before.
Now, the CIA believes that Tom, Roxanne, and Mike are the traitors. They have arrested Tom and are coming after Roxanne and Mike to recover the stolen information.
Ending explained:
The sale of the information
Roxanne and Mike must find Nick to prove their innocence. Roxanne reveals to Mike that she placed a tracker on Nick the night before, and she knows that he has gone to Istria.
Roxanne and Mike plan to catch him before he can sell the information. With the help of a friend, they manage to reach Istria undetected.
Roxanne apologizes to Mike, explaining that she did not mean to insult his life and that she is glad that he is with her, even though she is unsure if they will make it out alive.
Roxanne and Mike then find Juliet and Nick and prevent them from selling the information to the Iranians. This results in Juliet abandoning Nick.
Additionally, Mike steals the information from Nick, making him a target for the Iranians, but with Roxanne’s help, he manages to evade their pursuers.
The end of Mike’s mission
Before Mike and Roxanne can escape with the information, Nick catches up to them, holds Roxanne at gunpoint, and asks Mike to hand over the information.
Mike, unwilling to put Roxanne in danger, nearly gives the bag to him, but the sudden arrival of a surviving Iranian stops him.
In the chaos, Nick takes the opportunity to steal the information, leading to a car chase. During the chase, Nick forces Mike’s car off a cliff. Believing Mike to be dead, Roxanne stops pursuing Nick.
However, Mike survives and realizes that Roxanne genuinely cares about him. The two of them eventually prevent him from escaping with the stolen information.
When Nick tries to shoot them, Roxanne is left with no choice but to kill him. With Nick dead and the information secured, Mike and Roxanne’s mission comes to an end.
The beginning of Mike’s new life
After the mission, Mike returns home to attend his best friend’s wedding. Roxanne surprises him by showing up at the wedding.
They discuss how they prioritized each other’s safety over the success of the mission, realizing that they have feelings for each other.
They decide to act on those feelings and start dating. As they celebrate, Tom also arrives at the wedding with a new mission for them.
He gives them three days off before their next assignment, officially welcoming Mike to the Union as a full-time agent.