The Family Plan

A comic thriller that isn’t especially funny or particularly exciting, The Family Plan is an overlong slog that struggles to make use of its game cast.

The premise for this action comedy is solid... yes. Even intriguing. The execution, however, is slipshod, bland and at times downright distracted.

That scenario is played for laughs in the goofy, occasionally amusing yet tone-deaf and casually violent Apple TV+ film...

Cheerfully dumb and dutifully formulaic, it’s “content” in the worst sense of the term.

“The Family Plan” constantly lacks a foundation of recognizable human behavior and doesn’t replace its unbelievability with laughs or thrills.

Each setpiece is composed and paced much like the last, which only amplifies the sense of Dan as some kind of unflustered, largely unsympathetic man-machine, paused only by the script’s fleeting interpersonal conflicts.

The Family Plan has a right to be this good. Against all odds, this Apple backed action-comedy sticks the landing, not only making this one of the best Mark Wahlberg movies no one has seen, but also reminds audiences why he was Oscar-nominated.

In The Family Plan, a lot of opportunities are surrendered in favour of dull characters, and an even duller plot.

This family-oriented comedy-adventure is best when the humor balances the action, but when it descends into more graphic violence, it loses what makes it original and limits its age appeal.

It could have been worse, if instead of Las Vegas they could have been vacationing in Atlantic City.