2023 is filled with dad movies. From The Old Dads to About My Father, or even the critically acclaimed Oppenheimer and Ferrari, middle-aged fathers must have received an ample amount of joy. A Gen Z writer from GQ recently pointed out this observation, and I just could not get it out of my head. Although that writer’s banter equating ‘films being long’ with ‘old people movies’ is idiotic, there’s some truth to their argument. These films make dads feel good about themselves for all the sacrifices they made for their families. With that, they can also belittle the generations post theirs and have a sense of pride and superiority in it. ‘The Family Plan (2023)’ on Apple TV+ falls within the same framework.
Written by David Coggeshall, it follows a trope-ridden story of a family man with a secret. The premise immediately took me back to David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence which masterfully marries the contrast between its protagonist’s two lives. It understood the weight of consequences and the inescapable nature of his vices. ‘The Family Plan’ is not as remotely serious about its themes. It operates in the action-adventure fun family flick zone that can appeal to larger masses. So, ‘Dad being a criminal’ is not remotely as shocking to the characters.
In this equation, we meet Dan Morgan (played by Mark Wahlberg), who lives a seemingly normal life with his wife Jessica (played by Michelle Monaghan) and their two children – Nina (played by Zoe Colletti) and Kyle (played by Van Crosby). Dan works as a car salesman who is an expert in making others believe they need to buy more expensive cars. Jessica teaches combat techniques to other women. Dan pretends to be a non-violent person and makes his kids believe in the same principles.
However, Kyle secretly plays video games filled with gratuitous violence. He is so good at these games that people follow him as an expert streaming gamer. On the other hand, Nina, who was once idealistic about the merits of journalism, does not want to be a journalist anymore. Dan worries about her anti-establishment stance. His worries stem from his past life, where he was an Army Special Force officer and a Delta operator who later became an assassin. He supposedly killed people who were ‘bad guys’ in the equation.
The film takes no time to reveal its strong belief in the bad guy-good guy dichotomy. Since Dan wants to get away from violence and gore, he is a good guy. His past creeps in only when his cover gets exposed. But it does not result in a deep moral dilemma. Rather, it turns into a fun adventure where Wahlberg gets to act with the limited set of expressions he has. To be honest, there has hardly been anything distinguishable in his work besides what he did in Martin Scorsese’s The Departed. That performance was memorable because the director knew how to use his peculiar acting chops.
Unlike that, Wahlberg adds nothing special to ‘A Family Plan.’ His comical timing, which was exercised in films like Ted or the Will Ferrell comedies, is not utilized nearly enough here. Unlike those, Wahlberg plays a seemingly decent person who wants only good things for his family. Monaghan is okay in her wife-unware-of-her-husband’s-past role. Besides humor, her character also performs some stunts. But it is nowhere as good as her performances from Shane Black’s Kiss Kiss Bang Bang or Duncan Jones’ Source Code.
Simon Cellan Jones keeps ‘The Family Plan’ within the confines of accessible and forgettable entertainment. So, overall, we get a moderately entertaining family film that is mostly predictable. He works with dialogues that oftentimes seem robotic and undercooked. You can almost sense that they locked the first idea the writers had about them.
As I said before, the premise has been explored much better in many past works. Bob Odenkirk starrer Nobody isn’t a masterpiece but it understands the grittiness of its themes and has exceptional action sequences. The Equaliser has a formidable force like Denzel Washington to steer its genre vehicle forward. Compared to all those films, ‘The Family Plan’ is a limp work that has nothing new or particularly exciting to offer.
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