| “ | Look at this! Look at where we are! Ain’t it beautiful? I’m not gonna spend the rest of my life in a cage, Rox. No way. We could still sell it! Hundreds of millions of dollars! That could be us! We could disappear. Travel the world like we always, like we always dreamed about. | „ |
| ~ Faraday attempting to manipulate Rox into lowering her guard, his last words before being killed by her. |
Nick Faraday is the main antagonist of the 2024 Netflix spy comedy film The Union.
He is a Union agent and the former husband for his colleague Roxanne Hall. Seemingly getting killed on a botched Union operation, Nick reveals that he betrayed the Union for his ulterior motives.
He was portrayed by Mike Colter, who also played Colin Bramwell in Criminal Minds and Joseph Serumaga in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.
Biography[]
He opens the film leading his team on an operation in Trieste to capture a CIA turncoat, Derek Mitchell, who had a hard drive containing stolen intel. However, the mission takes a turn when their vehicle team member Rayne is blown up in his vehicle on the street with a car bomb that blows out the windows of a nearby crowded hotel lobby, resulting in Nick leading the team through the streets with Derek to escape.
However, one by one, the agents start getting picked off, leaving Nick and Derek the sole survivors on a bridge until Derek is shot dead and Nick is shot off the bridge and is presumed dead, with a black van swooping in taking the stolen intel left behind and leaving.
Throughout the movie, the stolen intel is revealed to contain top secret government intelligence on every single person who has ever served a Western or Western-allied country going back to the Cold War, including "every local cop, every rifleman in the marines, every spook at MI5, MI6, FBI, CIA, and the Union". It is planned to be sold on a black market auction in London hosted by Juliet Quinn AKA the Auctioneer, on behalf of the mystery seller who killed the Union agents in the beginning of the film, to the highest bidding foreign enemy, namely Russia, North Korea, and Iran.
However, after a mission steal the bidding device from North Korea, their tech expert Athena Kim is killed in their van while the Union's London branch, the BT Tower, is blown up. Roxanne and Mike then find Quinn using the auction to find her location and take the device back. However, during this, who shows up at Quinn's front door but Nick Faraday, back from the dead, who explains he was saved by an ocean current.
After an argument with Mike who discovers Nick was Rox's former husband, Nick tells them that Tom Brennan, Rox's boss is the one who leaked the Union's information as he had committed war crimes back in the day, and tells them to meet him at the Albert Bridge the next day to pass it on to the CIA.
However, when the day comes, Nick calls Rox and Mike who are at the bridge while he is not and reveals that he was the mystery seller and the mastermind behind the events of the movie, including botching the mission in Trieste, killing Athena, and bombing the BT Tower in an attempt to take the Union out. He also reveals that he switched the bags back at Quinn's house while Mike and Rox were distracted by Nick, and that he framed Rox and Brennan. Revealing his motives to be nothing but greed and ambition, Nick then hangs up while CIA Agent Foster arrives to try and arrest them before they escape.
Rox and Mike then find out that not only are Quinn and Nick seemingly in a relationship but that they set up a meeting to sell the intel to an Iranian terror cell. However, Roxanne interrupts while Mike swoops in and takes the intel, resulting in the Iranians ending negotiations and going after Mike. Meanwhile, Nick orders Quinn's men to kill Rox, but Quinn stops them from doing so, which seems to anger Nick. Quinn then explains that the whole plan has gotten too messy for her and leaves Nick, sparing Rox's life before leaving with her men.
Regarding the agents dead in Trieste as collateral damage, Nick escapes but then finds Mike who has the intel and takes Rox hostage until Mike agrees to give up the intel, with Nick bragging that Mike was t"oo chickenshit" to take the shot before the Iranians swoop in and start a car chase after Mike and Rox, with Nick carjacking someone at gunpoint before chasing after his buyer, Mike, and Rox.
When Mike and Rox finally catch up with Nick, who attempts to have his yacht pick him up to leave with the intel, Nick attempts to goad Rox into coming with him to sell the intel for hundreds of millions of dollars and disappear travel the world, which Rox rightly takes as manipulation. As such, Nick quickly tries to pull a gun on her before Rox quickly shoots him dead and he falls off the dock and into the water.
Personality[]
Nick is shown to have a great sense of greed and no moral quandries or sense of loyalty, which even his buyer, who is an Iranian terrorist, is cautious of. His motives are only greed and ambition, as the only reason he betrayed the Union was because he wasn't rewared for anything he did and wanted more, which is no where near a reason or an excuse for his actions. However, he is also shown to be very intelligent and arrogant, as he nearly is able to sell the stolen intel of every western intelligence agent or operative for hundreds of millions of dollars and repeatedly boasts of his plans to his enemies, Mike and Roxanne. And after his reveal of being a villain, Nick's materialism becomes apparent in his stylish outfits, with a recurring one being a light pink suit with a whiteundershirt, along with a gold chain and sunglasses.
Trivia[]
- Like Nick's actor, Mike Colter, has played Luke Cage in the MCU, his costars have also been in comic book movies and shows, as Halle Berry played Storm in the X-Men film trilogy and Catwoman in Catwoman (2004), and J.K. Simmons played J. Jonah Jameson in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy and Commissioner Gordon in Zack Snyder's Justice League.