Once again demonstrating his stolid competence in playing both straight action or comedy, Mark Wahlberg is the action-comedy lead with amazing abs in this glossy but weirdly forgettable tranche of content; it is directed by the estimable Simon Cellan Jones, known for more heartfelt work including BBC TV’s Our Friends in the North.
Used car salesman Dan (Wahlberg) is living the American dream as a family man in the ’burbs with wonderful wife Jessica (played by the excellent but somehow underused Michelle Monaghan) and three kids: two teens and a late-blessing baby, whose existence testifies to Dan and Jessica’s continuing loved-up bliss. But Dan has a secret: he is of course a former special forces warrior in a mercenary crew covertly used by the US government for deniable operations.
Disgusted by the increasingly amoral missions, Dan got out of the violence business with a new identity, met Jessica and is now living his best and blandest life, without anyone in his family knowing about what he used to do for a living. But of course one day some tough guys show up, led by Dan’s ex-chief Ciarán Hinds, with a bone to pick. Dan has to get his secret stash of guns, cash and fake passports out from under the stairs and spirit his baffled family to safety, to Las Vegas, of all the cool places.
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.
• The Family Plan is released on 15 December on Apple TV+.
