The Family Plan

## *The Family Plan*

### Produced by

David Ellison
Dana Goldberg
Don Granger
Stephen Levinson
Mark Wahlberg

### Starring

Mark Wahlberg
Michelle Monaghan

### Studio(s)

Skydance
Municipal Pictures

### Language

English

***The Family Plan*** is a 2023 American action-comedy film directed by Simon Cellan Jones and written by David Coggeshall. Produced by Apple Studios, Skydance Media, and Municipal Pictures, the film stars Mark Wahlberg and Michelle Monaghan in a story involving a father taking his family on a road trip while his past comes to hurt him and his family.

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.

## Premise

Dan Morgan is a seemingly normal family man, but was once the deadliest assassin in the world. When his past finally catches up with him, Dan takes his family on a "road trip" to Las Vegas so he can confront the man who wants him dead—all while trying to keep his old life a secret from his wife and children.

## Story

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. Jessica, now a physical therapist, years ago lost a bid for the 2004 Olympics to a torn ACL.

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 realized 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.

Meanwhile, McCaffrey and his team go through the Morgans' home but can't find any indication where they're headed as Dan discarded everyone's cell phones to avoid being traced. He drives through the night until they reach Iowa City. Excited, Nina begs them to check out the Southern Iowa University because she hopes to follow her boyfriend Trevor there rather than pursue her original goal of attending Stanford.

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 incapacitating the man and rejoining his family on the tour. Before leaving campus, Nina manages to find Trevor's dorm only to learn he's cheating on her with another girl. When she finds out that Trevor is cheating on her, Dan teaches her some martial arts moves, which she uses on the former.

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 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. Sean 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 Sean accepts his offer. He relents, and Jessica and the kids are taken back to the airport to leave for Buffalo. Sean manages to escape and McCaffrey calls his army into the lobby of the hotel to recapture him. Sean engages the mercenaries, knocking out McCaffrey, while Jessica and the kids fight Gwen. Using her Olympic-level track and field skills, Jessica hurls a piece of broken bamboo as a javelin to impale Gwen through the chest. (One of the film's plot point errors is reference to Jessica's "decathlon" career, as women compete at the Olympic level in the heptathlon, not decathlon.)

Some time later, the Morgans have returned to their lives in Buffalo; Sean / 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.

The film ends as they load up into a rented RV, embarking on a cross-country roadtrip to drop Nina off at Stanford.

## Cast

* Mark Wahlberg as Dan Morgan, a father who's a former soldier but now a car salesman.
* Michelle Monaghan as Jessica Morgan
* Saïd Taghmaoui as Augie
* Maggie Q as Gwen
* Zoe Colletti as Nina Morgan
* Van Crosby as Kyle Morgan
* Ciarán Hinds as McCaffrey
* Felicia Pearson as Toothpick
* Miles Doleac as Gold Chain
* Lateef Crowder dos Santos as Neck Tattoo
* Joyner Lucas as Coogan
* Kellen Boyle as Cyrus
* Jonny Coyne as Spiros
* Saïd Taghmaoui as Augie
* Tony L. Calloway as Mrs. Overmeyer
* Valkyrae as herself

## Production

On August 16, 2022, Apple announced an action comedy film from Skydance Media and Municipal Pictures to star Mark Wahlberg. In October 2022, Michelle Monaghan and Saïd Taghmaoui joined the cast. Other cast members added were Ciarán Hinds, Maggie Q, Zoe Colletti, Van Crosby, and Miles Doleac.

Principal photography commenced in October 2022 in Atlanta, Georgia, under the working title, *Holiday Road*. A car dealership in Canton, Georgia was used as a location for the film. Shots of a helicopter were filmed in downtown Buffalo, New York in early November for the film. An ice cream shop in Clermont, Georgia was transformed into Lambert's Diner for the film. In February 2023, Wahlberg filmed scenes at The Strat casino resort in Las Vegas and also wrapped filming.

## Release

The film is scheduled to be released on Apple TV+ on December 15, 2023.

## 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." 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.

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". 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".

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". *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".

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Maggie Q, Zoe Colletti, Van Crosby And Ciaran Hinds Join Apple And Skydance's 'The Family Plan' Starring Mark Wahlberg" (November 18, 2022).
2. ↑ "Mark Wahlberg To Star In 'The Family Plan' For Apple Original Films And Skydance". *[eadline Hollywood* (August 16, 2022).
3. ↑ "Michelle Monaghan Joins Mark Wahlberg In Apple And Skydance’s 'The Family Plan'" (October 19, 2022).
4. ↑ "Saïd Taghmaoui Joins Apple & Skydance's 'The Family Plan'; Prime Video's 'The Idea Of You' Adds Mathilda Gianopoulos" (October 31, 2022).
5. ↑ Christopherson, David (December 9, 2022). "AHS Alum Miles Doleac Joins Mark Wahlberg in Holiday Road". *MovieWeb*.
6. ↑ Goddard, Molly Claire (October 19, 2022). "On The Go? Mark Wahlberg Lands In Georgia After Ditching Hollywood For New Life In Nevada". *OK Magazine*.
7. ↑ Ho, Rodney (November 15, 2022). "What's filming in Georgia in November 2022?". *The Atlanta Journal-Constitution*.
8. ↑ Clement, Imani (November 8, 2022). "Helicopter flying over Buffalo being used to film scenes for new movie". *WKBW-TV*.
9. ↑ Anderson, Ben (December 16, 2022). "Mark Wahlberg stops by Clermont creamery to shoot for upcoming movie". *The Gainesville Times*.