The Family Plan is a 2023 action comedy film directed by Simon Cellan Jones and written by David Coggeshall. It stars Mark Wahlberg, Michelle Monaghan, Zoe Colletti, Van Crosby, Saïd Taghmaoui, Maggie Q, Miles Doleac, Joyner Lucas, and Ciarán Hinds.
Wahlberg plays Dan Morgan, a covert assassin who has long since traded his guns for the life of an ordinary family man. When his past starts to re-emerge, however, he must take his family on the run, under the guise of a family road trip, in order to protect them from a new crop of deadly killers. The film premiered on Apple TV+ on December 15, 2023.
Previews: Trailer
The Family Plan includes examples of the following:
- Abandoned Area: The Poseidon Casino where the killers have a base is a former hotel that is scheduled to be torn down.
- Action Dad: As shown off in the trailer, Dan is a father and former assassin who fights enemies while protecting his family.
- Action Mom: Jess manages to fight by using a gun and some basic martial arts while fighting Gwen, despite being outmatched, before killing her by utilizing her athletic training.
- Affectionate Nickname: Dan calls Nina "Beans", which she initially doesn't appreciate, but as the film goes on, she doesn't complain when he says it.
- Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: In the trailer, the Morgan teens repeatedly roll their eyes at their parents' antics, such as when they sing along to "Ice, Ice Baby".
- Archnemesis Dad: The Big Bad is Liam McCaffrey, Dan/Sean's father who targets him for leaving the assassin life behind.
- Asshole Victim: Nina's cheating boyfriend Trevor suffers a nerve attack at her hands. And to add insult to injury, Nina, the girl who he was sleeping with, approves of it.
- Badass in Distress: Dan is a trained, very skilled assassin who gets held captive by his former employers near the end of the film. His family have to help him escape.
- Big Bad: McCaffrey, the leader of the gang of killers pursuing Dan and his family.
- Bond One-Liner: After she fails with her pole vault, Jess is mocked by Gwen on "not a decathlete." Jess then hurls the broken pole to perfectly impale Gwen and smirks "there's nine other events, bitch."
- Bratty Teenage Daughter: Nina is a sullen and resentful teenager who frequently clashes with her family while also also lecturing them on social justice issues at first. However, over time she gets over this and grows much closer to them.
- Brick Joke: After Jess first witnesses Dan kill a henchman, she vomits, to which he says "Everybody barfs their first time." Later, after Kyle witnesses another mook's death, he also vomits, and Jess repeats the same phrase to him.
- Broken Pedestal: Sean turned on McCaffrey when he discovered that the team was being sold to the highest bidder.
- The Cameo: Valkyrae makes an appearance during a game competition that Kyle participates in.
- Career-Ending Injury: Jess was a decathlete who suffered a torn ACL, ending her dreams of competing in the Olympics.
- Car Fu: Dan takes out a trio of motorcycle-driving Mooks by nudging their cycles with his minivan and causing them to hit other cars.
- Casting Gag: Kyle was played by Van Crosby, who at one point gets a new ID with the first name Van. He complains it's what you call a vehicle, not a person.
- Chekhov's Gun: When Jess is brought to the elevator after saying goodbye to Dan, she forgets the diaper bag. A couple scenes later, Dan uses the bag as the holder for a bomb.
- Dark Action Girl: Gwen turns out to be a trained assassin like Dan, his former colleague and girlfriend. Another of the assassins whom Dan kills is also a young black woman.
- Designated Girl Fight: Jess and Gwen fight near the end. Though the former gets beaten handily at first as the latter is a trained assassin, she still turns the tables and wins in the end.
- Disney Villain Death: During the final shootout, Dan throws a couple of Mooks over railings and through roofs. Subverted with Gwen when Nina shoves a cart at her which plummets over the edge of the hotel but she dodges and even though she winds up off the roof, she is easily able to get right back up.
- Epic Fail: Jess attempts to do a pole vault near the end in her fight with Gwen. The pole (a large wooden one) breaks and she slams into a wall.
- Everything Sounds Sexier in French: Jess is quite turned on when Dan speaks to her in French, basically saying the trope name afterward. He says it's due to French being melodic.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: McCaffrey and Gwen honestly think Dan will give up this "boring" life and come back to the family with Gwen truly believing if Jess is gone, Dan will come back to her, ignoring how he loves his family more.
- Exact Words: Done by Sean when he describes McCaffrey as a father figure and how he had to turn on "the only family I've ever known." He just left out the tiny detail that McCaffrey is his father.
- Eye Scream: Coogan meets this fate after Dan throws a concealed knife into his eye when he is threatening Jess at gunpoint.
- Hypocrite: Dan's son Kyle angrily calls him a hypocrite for trying to stop him play violent video games, because it turns out that Dan is a trained assassin who's killed people.
- I Have Your Wife: McCaffrey uses threats to Dan's family when he's coercing him into working as an assassin once again.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: After the aforementioned failed attempt at pole-vaulting, Jess uses the splintered end of the pole to impale Gwen through the chest.
- Improvised Weapon: Dan takes out a Mook with a baby bottle full of milk, which he sprays into the biker's helmet blinding him.
- Lady in Red: Jess wears an eye-catching red dress during the night out on the town in Vegas.
- Oh, Crap!: Jess when she realizes Gwen has been setting her up to get to Dan and she just led herself and the kids into a trap.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: The Drone Deployer henchman is only referred to in subtitles as Tracker.
- Parental Abandonment: Dan mentions his mother died when he was four years old, while his father didn't come back into his life until he was old enough to kill.
- Practically Different Generations: Nina and Kyle are at least 16 years older than their infant brother Max.
- Precision F-Strike: Twice. Jess complains about having "fucking eyeball" on her, and Nina later says "What the fuck?" upon seeing her dad brandish a gun.
- Red Herring: The German man who Dan accosts and is merely carrying a briefcase full of heirloom corn.
- Retired Badass: In the trailer, Dan admits to his family that he used to be an assassin before getting out of the game. The action sequences surrounding this moment show that he hasn't lost his touch, however.
- Road Trip Plot: The trailer shows Dan loading his family into a car for a 33-hour drive to Las Vegas, with a number of contract killers to deal with along the way.
- Scenery Porn: While the family are on the road in Colorado, we see some great shots of the Rocky Mountains briefly.
- Shout-Out: When Dan stuns Gwen, Kyle says he used a Vulcan nerve pinch.
- Sleeping Dummy: When Nina and Kyle sneak out of the hotel room to go have fun, they use long pillows to give the impression they're asleep; since Dan and Jess are distracted by the Mooks in the room, the ruse goes unnoticed for quite some time.
- Soapbox Sadie: Nina is initially very preaching on social justice, often lecturing her family about them. It turns out to be the influence of her long-distance boyfriend, and once she learns he's cheating, Nina drops this, relieving them as they'd found it pretty annoying.
- Starter Villain Stays: Neck Tattoo, the assassin who attacks Dan in the supermarket, continues to trail the family for the rest of the journey.
- Tracking Device: At first the villains tail Dan with a tracker they put on his minivan. He discovers this and puts it on another guy's car to throw them off.
- Undignified Death: Spiros, the henchman taking Jess and the kids to the airport, meets his end after Jess shoves one of Max's dirty diapers in his face before pushing him over a railing and down several stories.
- Villains Out Shopping: The tracker henchman mentions he is a fan of Kyle under his gaming alias Kyllboi.
- Violence Is Disturbing: Jess is shocked and vomits on the floor after she sees Dan kill a man defending her. Kyle later does the same thing when Dan kills in their defense once again.
- Viva Las Vegas!: In the trailer, Dan takes his family to Vegas in order to pick up documents for their new identities.
- Vomit Discretion Shot: Jess and Kyle both vomit offscreen right after seeing Dan kill someone.
- Woman Scorned: Nina discovers that her boyfriend Trevor is cheating on her. Dan teaches her how to do a nerve pinch which she inflicts on Trevor.
- Would Hurt a Child: In the trailer, the first assassin who goes after Dan attacks him with no regard for the baby on his chest.
