The holiday season is in full swing and Hollywood likes to flood theaters or streaming services with family theme films. This year, Apple TV+ decided to release a big-budget production version of True Lies meets Vegas Vacation in The Family Plan. It’s marketed as a comedy for family audiences, with promotion emphasizing acts of bonding and cute baby reactions to entice viewers but it’s more of an action comedy with shootouts, car chases, hand-to-hand combats, and some F-bombs in the feature.

In Buffalo, New York, Dan (Mark Wahlberg) is a high-end car dealer making a life for his family, including wife Jessica (Michelle Monaghan), and kids Nina (Zoe Colletti), Kyle (Van Crosby), and baby Max. Dan is living a good life by being the top car seller at his dealership and having a beautiful family. But things aren’t as good as it appears. His two teenage kids don’t really like him and think of him as a boring person and kind of a wimp. While his marriage isn’t in any trouble, his wife sort of thinks of him that way, too. Jessica wants to experience life by traveling the world, but Dan isn’t that type of person. Dan also hates technology and despises being photographed. One night while out on a “date night” with his wife, some young punk at a park took Dan’s photo and posted it on social media. This concerned Dan but he couldn’t do anything to make the punk take down the photo.

The next day, while doing grocery shopping with his baby Max, they were attacked by an assassin. Realizing that he and his family are in danger, he contacted Augie (Said Taghmaoui) and asked him to create fake passports for his family. We learned that Dan is a super assassin who’s been hiding out in the suburbs all these years but now his enemies are coming after him. Creating a vacation story to cover questions, Dan quickly plans a road trip to Las Vegas, working to lose those on the hunt for him. Dan must not only try to keep his family safe from danger, but he must also tell them who he really is and risk losing them no matter what.

The screenplay is credited to David Coggeshall and it’s full of cliches. There isn’t anything that you haven’t seen before. He basically took elements from Cameron’s True Lies and mixed them into Chevy Chase’s Family Vacation films. Most of the humor fell flat and some are cringe-worthy. Director Simon Cellan Jones couldn’t elevate the generic script. The action scenes looked way too stagy and not that exciting. A ridiculous fight scene involves Dan having his baby strapped to his chest while an assassin tries to kill them both. I understand it’s meant as a humor fight but logistically, it’s impossible and looked ridiculous. Another ridiculous scene is a chase through Chicago when Dan’s family is asleep, and he tries to evade assassins on a motorcycle. Again, it’s supposed to be funny but as an audience, I wanted to yell out “OH COME ON!” The climatic shootout at an abandoned hotel in Vegas was a bit watchable but Cellan doesn’t have the talent to make the action look more exciting.

As for performances, Wahlberg is playing Wahlberg. He’s playing the same type of character you’ve seen in his other action films. Although, you can tell that they used his body double more often in action scenes since he’s in his 50s now. The two young actors were fine as your typical teenagers. Ciaran Hinds and Maggie Q looked bored as your typical one-dimensional villains. My guess is they just wanted to hang out in Vegas and get an easy paycheck.

The only person who seemed to be really into her role was Monaghan. She was great as the bored housewife who sort of regretted getting married early and having kids. She wanted to see the world and when she got to Vegas, Monaghan really sold as someone very excited to be in a city that’s full of life. Also, they didn’t turn her into the usual damsel in distress and she’s the one that saved her kids from danger, not Dan.

This could’ve been a fun action comedy, but the script is so mediocre, and the direction was lifeless, with a better writer and director, it would’ve been a fun film. My two stars are for Monaghan’s performance and the other is for the film takes place in one of my favorite cities to visit, Las Vegas. And the family stayed at my favorite resort in Vegas, The Aria.

So have you seen The Family Plan? Well, what do you think?

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