The Family Plan

The Family Plan
Release poster
Directed bySimon Cellan Jones
Written byDavid Coggeshall
Produced by
Starring
CinematographyMichael Burgess
Edited byTim Porter
Music byKevin Matley
Production
companies
Distributed byApple TV+
Release date
  • December 15, 2023 (2023-12-15)
Running time
119 minutes[1]
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

The Family Plan is a 2023 American action comedy film directed by Simon Cellan Jones and written by David Coggeshall. Produced by Apple Studios and Skydance Media and Mark Wahlberg's Municipal Pictures, it stars Wahlberg, Michelle Monaghan, Zoe Colletti, Van Crosby, Saïd Taghmaoui, Maggie Q, and Ciarán Hinds.

Production began in late 2022. The film was released by Apple TV+ on December 15, 2023.

Deadline reported the film became Apple TV+'s most watched movie ever.[2]

Plot

Dan Morgan is a gifted car salesman living a quiet life in the suburbs of Buffalo, New York with his wife Jessica and their three kids Nina, Kyle, and Max.

One day, Dan is suddenly attacked. After the attack, Dan contacts his former associate, Augie, to find out why he was attacked and Augie suggests it is Dan's former employer McCaffrey, and advises him to disappear just to be safe. Dan orders a new set of identity documents for him and his family. Dan retrieves his kids from school and picks Jessica up from work, telling her they're taking a spontaneous road trip to Las Vegas.

As they're leaving town, Dan realizes that they're being followed and deduces that their family minivan has a tracker planted on it. He stops at his car dealership and uses one of the service bays to find and remove the device from the undercarriage of the minivan.

Meanwhile, McCaffrey and his team go through the Morgans' home but can't find any indication as to where they're headed, as Dan discarded everyone's cell phones before he and his family left to avoid being traced. Dan drives through the night until they reach Iowa City. Excited, Nina begs them to check out the Southern Iowa University campus because she hopes to follow her boyfriend Trevor there, rather than pursue her original goal of attending Stanford. When she finds out that Trevor is cheating on her, Dan teaches her some martial arts moves, which she uses on the former.

During a campus tour, Dan notices a German man on his phone, and believes he works for McCaffrey, though he realizes he's mistaken when they're attacked by another of McCaffrey's henchmen, battling it out in one of the chemistry labs before Dan incapacitates the man and rejoins his family on the tour.

As they head to Vegas, Dan grows closer to his family. They arrive in Las Vegas, where Dan plans to tell Jessica the truth about his past over a romantic dinner. While they leave the kids to babysit Max in their penthouse suite, the kids take off with Max to walk to the Las Vegas Strip. When Dan and Jessica head back to their suite to check on the kids, they are attacked by McCaffrey's team. Dan quickly dispatches them, shocking Jessica. Revealing his name to be Sean, he finally comes clean to his family, who are outraged. Dan nevertheless gives them their new passports and IDs, telling them that their lives in Buffalo are over. The next morning, Jessica's friend, Gwen, arrives in a private jet to fly them home to Buffalo.

On the plane, Gwen reveals she works for McCaffrey and hands Jessica and the kids over to him. He takes them hostage, and threatens to kill them unless Dan accepts his offer. He relents, and Jessica and the kids are taken back to the airport to leave for Buffalo. Dan manages to escape and McCaffrey calls his army into the lobby of the hotel to recapture him. Dan engages the mercenaries while Jessica and the kids fight Gwen, culminating in Jessica using a piece of broken bamboo as a javelin to impale Gwen through the chest. Meanwhile, Dan knocks McCaffrey out, who is taken into custody.

Some time later, the Morgans have returned to their lives in Buffalo; Dan is now running his own security firm using his skillset to advise clients how to better defend against attacks while Jessica coaches high school track and field. Returning home, they load up into a rented RV embarking on a cross-country road trip to drop Nina off at Stanford.

Cast

Production

In August 2022, Apple Studios announced an action comedy film from Skydance Media and Municipal Pictures to star Mark Wahlberg.[3] In October 2022, Michelle Monaghan and Saïd Taghmaoui joined the cast.[4][5] Other cast members added were Ciarán Hinds, Maggie Q, Zoe Colletti, Van Crosby and Miles Doleac.[6][7]

Principal photography commenced in October 2022 in Atlanta, Georgia,[8] under the working title Holiday Road.[9] A car dealership in Canton, Georgia was used as a location for the film.[10] A helicopter was used to film aerial footage in downtown Buffalo, New York in early November.[11] An ice cream shop in Clermont, Georgia was transformed into Lambert's Diner for the film.[12] In February 2023, Wahlberg filmed scenes at The Strat casino resort in Las Vegas and also wrapped filming.[13][14]

Release

The film was released on Apple TV+ on December 15, 2023.[15]

Reception

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 24% of 34 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 4.4/10. The website's consensus reads: "Heavy on rote action and light on laughs, The Family Plan aimlessly imitates an array of films that tell similar stories -- and often in more compelling fashion."[16] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 40 out of 100, based on 10 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.[17]

Guy Lodge of Variety gave a negative review, calling the film a "strangely sluggish shoot-'em-up". He criticized Coggeshall's script, writing that it "repeatedly underlines the mismatch between the wholesome white-bread family at its center and the hard-boiled genre proceedings in which it increasingly embroils them, but with no accompanying sense of giddy absurdism".[18] Calum Marsh writing for The New York Times gave a positive review; he praised director Jones saying that he "maintains a good handle on the comic-thriller tone and shoots the action with wit and creativity" and wrote that, "Wahlberg is more charismatic than he's been onscreen in nearly a decade".[19]

Frank Scheck of The Hollywood Reporter wrote, "Stretching its high concept but thin results to the breaking point, The Family Plan feels like a movie whose best moments were during the pitch meeting" and that "to say it's predictable is an insult to predictability".[20] The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw said: "The script works efficiently and everyone involved sells it hard; there are continuous closeup cutaways to that cute and gurgling baby who never cries no matter what happens. But the sheer robotic sheen of the film in the end works against it; Dan's teen son happens to be a super-talented gamer and in fact the whole movie has a Grand Theft Auto aesthetic".[21]

References

  1. ^ "The Family Plan (12)". British Board of Film Classification. December 4, 2023. Archived from the original on December 7, 2023. Retrieved December 5, 2023.
  2. ^ Jr, Mike Fleming (December 21, 2023). "Mark Wahlberg's 'The Family Plan' Apple TV+'s Most Watched Movie Ever As 'The Morning Show' Broke Records For Streamer's TV Drama Series". Deadline. Retrieved December 21, 2023.
  3. ^ Kroll, Justin (August 16, 2022). "Mark Wahlberg To Star In 'The Family Plan' For Apple Original Films And Skydance". Deadline Hollywood. Archived from the original on October 15, 2022. Retrieved January 8, 2023.
  4. ^ Kroll, Justin (October 19, 2022). "Michelle Monaghan Joins Mark Wahlberg In Apple And Skydance's 'The Family Plan'". Archived from the original on October 31, 2022. Retrieved October 19, 2022.
  5. ^ Grobar, Matt (October 31, 2022). "Saïd Taghmaoui Joins Apple & Skydance's 'The Family Plan'; Prime Video's 'The Idea Of You' Adds Mathilda Gianopoulos". Archived from the original on February 16, 2023. Retrieved October 31, 2022.
  6. ^ Kroll, Justin (November 18, 2022). "Maggie Q, Zoe Colletti, Van Crosby And Ciaran Hinds Join Apple And Skydance's The Family Plan Starring Mark Wahlberg". Deadline Hollywood. Archived from the original on November 18, 2022. Retrieved November 18, 2022.
  7. ^ Christopherson, David (December 9, 2022). "AHS Alum Miles Doleac Joins Mark Wahlberg in Holiday Road". MovieWeb. Archived from the original on January 6, 2023. Retrieved January 8, 2023.
  8. ^ Goddard, Molly Claire (October 19, 2022). "On The Go? Mark Wahlberg Lands In Georgia After Ditching Hollywood For New Life In Nevada". OK Magazine. Archived from the original on March 31, 2023. Retrieved January 8, 2023.
  9. ^ Ho, Rodney (November 15, 2022). "What's filming in Georgia in November 2022?". The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Archived from the original on February 23, 2023. Retrieved January 8, 2023.
  10. ^ "The Family Plan". Explore Canton, GA. Archived from the original on October 4, 2023. Retrieved September 14, 2023.
  11. ^ Clement, Imani (November 8, 2022). "Helicopter flying over Buffalo being used to film scenes for new movie". WKBW-TV. Archived from the original on January 8, 2023. Retrieved January 8, 2023.
  12. ^ Anderson, Ben (December 16, 2022). "Mark Wahlberg stops by Clermont creamery to shoot for upcoming movie". The Gainesville Times. Archived from the original on January 8, 2023. Retrieved January 8, 2023.
  13. ^ "Mark Wahlberg hypes new movie after filming at The STRAT in Las Vegas". KSNV. February 15, 2023. Archived from the original on March 8, 2023. Retrieved April 13, 2023.
  14. ^ Wahlberg, Mark [@markwahlberg] (February 8, 2023). "Congrats to my guy @joynerlucas on his first motion picture wrap. Stay tuned". Archived from the original on April 13, 2023. Retrieved April 13, 2023 – via Instagram.
  15. ^ McArdle, Tommy (November 1, 2023). "Mark Wahlberg Is a Suburban Dad with a Secret Assassin Past in The Family Plan First Look (Exclusive)". People. Archived from the original on November 3, 2023. Retrieved November 3, 2023.
  16. ^ "The Family Plan". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved December 21, 2023. Edit this at Wikidata
  17. ^ "The Family Plan". Metacritic. Fandom, Inc. Retrieved December 18, 2023.
  18. ^ Lodge, Guy (December 15, 2023). "The Family Plan Review: Rote Actioner Stars Mark Wahlberg as Cinema's Least Well-Disguised Assassin". Variety. Retrieved December 15, 2023.
  19. ^ Marsh, Calum (December 14, 2023). "The Family Plan Review: Who's Your Daddy?". The New York Times. Archived from the original on December 15, 2023. Retrieved December 15, 2023.
  20. ^ Scheck, Frank (December 15, 2023). "The Family Plan Review: Mark Wahlberg's Apple TV+ Action Comedy Is Numbingly Routine". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved December 15, 2023.
  21. ^ Bradshaw, Peter (December 15, 2023). "The Family Plan review – Mark Wahlberg and his abs forced to revive special forces past". The Guardian. Retrieved December 15, 2023.

External links