On Friday, December 15, the action-comedy “The Family Plan,” starring Mark Wahlberg and Michelle Monaghan, was released on Apple TV+. In addition to Skydance Media, Wahlberg’s production company, Municipal Pictures, also worked on the film. In the review below we tell you what the next adventures in Vegas await the heroes, and with them the audience, and how interesting it is to watch.
Pros:
several funny episodes; quality work from Michelle Monaghan; Overall, a light, unobtrusive movie that, not without reason, claims to be your leisure time on a Friday or Saturday evening
Minuses:
weak action; there is little quality comedy for almost two hours of running time; climactic showdowns look too pointless
“Family Plan” / The Family Plan
Genre Comedy Action
Directed by Simon Cellan Jones
Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Michelle Monaghan, Maggie Q, Ciarán Hinds, Zoe Margaret Colletti
Apple TV+ premiere
Year of release 2023
IMDb website
Dan Morgan is a used car salesman in Buffalo, a happy father of three children and the husband of the best woman in the world, Jessica. He lives a quiet, measured life in the suburbs, where perfectly trimmed lawns and cozy, neat houses cannot be distinguished from each other. In Dan’s life, everything is so calm and under control that you can die of boredom: home, work, changing the diapers of the little one, tacos on Wednesdays and sex, like fish dishes in a scoop – strictly on Thursdays.
It’s probably precisely because of this extreme predictability that Jessica lacks thrills. After working out at the gym, over a serving of smoothie that matches the color of her clothes, the woman complains to her new friend Gwen that she could use a break from the trap of her home routine. And then the rule “be careful what you wish for” comes into play, because suddenly Dan takes off and invites the whole family to go on a trip to Vegas. But none of the family realizes that this is not a family adventure, but the escape of a compromised ex-mercenary from his former colleagues.
“The Family Plan” belongs to the category of unpretentious entertaining cinema that the viewer needs on a Friday night. With good beer, as it is, chips and everything that soothes the soul alarmed by constant apocalypses. In fact, all of us, adults, to one degree or another are forced to cope with the daily routine, just like the main characters of the film, therefore such projects have their own benefits.
The new film with Mark Wahlberg relies more on your desire to relax with light content than on your own achievements.
The story begins, however, quite quickly: already at the fifteenth minute, Wahlberg’s character is forced to enter into battle in a supermarket with the first attacker, fighting off either with detergents or cans of canned pineapple. From the point of view of the production, the battle scene looks so-so, if not terrible, but we are not having another John Wick adventure here, so this is not critical.
“The Family Plan” looks like an absolutely sterile product, both in the context of its comedy and action components.
It is customary to say about such projects that they are intended for one-time evening viewing, and to some extent the film manages to cope with this simple function. But the next day you are unlikely to remember the names of the local characters.
For almost two hours of running time, there are catastrophically few jokes here, and even fewer truly funny ones. And there’s not much to say about the action. The final battle scenes are as pointless as possible, so it’s not surprising that they can pretty much ruin the overall viewing experience.
Given this, acting performances take on special significance. Mark Wahlberg offers a typical Wahlberg, whom we have all seen in many films, at least in “Transformers”, at least in some “Spenser Justice”. But Michelle Monaghan, who has already played the on-screen wife of her current co-star in the dramatic thriller “Patriot’s Day,” gives a surprisingly energetic performance. Moreover, the funniest moments are associated with her heroine.
Certain small episodes can be called quite good, such as the total misunderstanding of the younger generation, why on earth their parents get such a kick out of the immortal hit Ice Ice Baby by Vanilla Ice. Or how an adult woman, a mother of three children, fits in well with the youth crowd and drinks beer no worse than college students. It’s a pity that there isn’t as much of this kind of pleasant fun in the plot as we would like.
What happened in the end? “The Family Plan” is underwhelming and seems like a completely passable film. But on the other hand, it does not encourage any negativity, and this is already good. In the end, this is passable Friday entertainment on streaming, which will allow you to relax for two hours and is not even particularly annoying due to the fact that the output turns out to be absolute nonsense.
Conclusion:
“The Family Plan” is Apple TV+’s second prominent action comedy this year, following “Unanswered.” But its creators step on the same rake as the authors of its predecessor, criminally not using the full potential of their plan and the capabilities of the actors that they have at their disposal.
