There are various reasons why we’ll see a film: it may star an actor or actress that you like, or it may have a director behind the camera who you admire, or it may well just be a genre that tickles your fancy.

Hollywood is fully aware of all these elements, which is why they will often be up front in the marketing for the film on release, to hook us all in. What appears to have fallen down the pecking order of importance over the years is the story itself, as this latest Netflix original proves.

Working in construction in New Jersey is Mike McKenna (Mark Wahlberg); he’s your average blue collar worker, who doesn’t mind getting his hands dirty, as long as he can hang out with his buddies at the bar at the end of the night.

One day an old flame, Roxanne (Halle Berry), walks into said bar, 25 years after just up and leaving town, without as much as a goodbye to Mike. Still, it’s obvious there’s still chemistry there, so she suggests to mike that they move on to somewhere else.

They go to an old haunt of theirs, and Mike is getting the impression that something’s about to happen. As it turns out he’s not wrong, but it’s not what he thinks, as he soon finds himself being drugged, only to wake up in a room – in London.

Roxanne explains that she’s now an agent for a secret organisation known as the Union, and she thinks Mike would be perfect for this job she’s on. There is an auction taking place in the city shortly, where some sensitive, important Intel is about to be sold to the highest bidder, and it’s down to the Union to make sure that doesn’t happen.

But is your average blue collar worker up to the task of saving the world?

Buddy films are all about the chemistry between the ‘buddies’ involved, but let’s face, it, you kind of know what you’re getting with any Mark Walhberg film. He’s not the most gifted of actors, and yet he’s carved out a credible career as a leading man, despite his limited range. Still ,he’s an actor that knows his lane, and sticks to it, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Berry, on the other hand, has shown glimpses of greatness, such as her Oscar-winning turn in 2001’s Monster’s Ball. Since then however, she has had to make do with average roles in the Marvel world as part of the X-Men franchise as Storm, to being a Bond ‘girl’ in 2002’s Die another Day, and 2004’s Catwoman.

It doesn’t help that her last film The Mothership didn’t even manage to get released, with Netflix deciding that it just wasn’t worth it, despite all the money they had already ploughed into it. So accepting this must have been a bit of a no brainer for her.

And on a base level, it’s perfectly fine, an ex couple hooking up for work to save the world from baddies. But when you start to actually take notice of the story, you realise just how preposterous it is.

Mike work’s in construction, and has his whole life, but for some reason his ex Roxanne, suddenly thinks of him, 25 years after dumping him, and decides he would be the perfect man for a dangerous job, which he has no qualifications for. That’s ok, the Union has a training programme – of two weeks – to get Mike proficient as an agent, including fighting and using various firearms. And wouldn’t you know it, Mike takes to it like a duck becoming a member of the SAS. All of this taking place without a sense of irony.

We understand that film and storytelling is all about making stuff up, but come on, give your audience a modicum of credit. If this is the nonsense they wanted to peddle, then British director Julian Farino should have well and truly leaned into it and revel in the absurd spectacle of it all. The fact that he doesn’t only makes things worse.

In doing so, the filmmakers show the audience no respect at all, and just cobble together a disturbingly incoherent plot, just to bring Wahlberg and Berry together, as if it’s something that audiences have been pining for, for all these years. It’s very much our understanding however, that that is very much not the case.

The truth is both Berry and audiences deserve much better than this – Walhberg, not so much.

It just goes to prove that there’s a real art to scriptwriting and storytelling, which is completely lost on this lazy, by the numbers buddy action flick, that just wanted a vehicle for Berry and Walhberg, to get them from A to B with as little friction as possible, and they got it. Doesn’t mean we have to put up with it though.