On the surface The Family Plan (2023) is a benign comedy action film, but if you look closer you’ll see an altogether more sinister message beneath the well executed shenanigans.
Dan Morgan (Mark Wahlberg) is living the American dream, ticking the boxes of a suburban dad, providing for his wife and three children. But Dan has a past, a secret he’s been keeping from his family. He was once a gun for hire, a top notch killer, a paid assassin.
So when the ever-watchful eye of social media reveals his whereabouts, and his former employer send people to kill him, Dan takes his family and runs, to Las Vegas, without telling them they’re being chased. As far as they know, Dan is being uncharacteristically spontaneous and they’re on a much needed vacation.
As the plot thickens, and Dan does his best to keep his family safe, the road-trip becomes a chance to spend quality time with his family. Bonds cemented, when the truth finally comes out, they rally as a family to thwart the bad guys and save each other.
As positive and life-affirming as this ends up being, the flipside of this wholesome message is altogether more malignant. Scratch a little deeper and you’ll realise you’re complicit in a conspiracy. This happy-go-lucky Jason Bourne is an assassin, a serial-killer, escaping his past misdeeds. There’s something really sinister, even immoral, in the myth that Dan can just walk away from his past. There are no consequences. In fact he does well out of his truth, starting a new business selling his expertise as a security consultant.
On one level The Family Plan is escapist fun, on the other, wish fulfilling for the death-dealers that walk among us. Extrapolate out and you’ll quickly realise, it’s Dan’s world we’re all trying to survive.
Darrin // Nightingale 