The Family Plan 2
This is a Christmas gift best not given or exchanged for something better.
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I liked the first “The Family Plan” well enough (my review here) and looked forward to “The Family Plan 2” (now streaming on Apple TV), but I must admit the finished product was reminiscent of past-their-prime holiday leftovers. Almost the entire enterprise is stale and tasteless.
Mark Wahlberg returns as used car salesman/secret agent Dan Morgan. Dan and his wife Jessica (Michelle Monaghan) and their sons Kyle (Van Crosby) and Max (twins Peter and Theodore Lindsay) are travelling from Buffalo, N.Y. to London to spend Christmas with their daughter Nina (Zoe Colletti), who’s studying abroad.
The family is surprised to find a man named Omar (Reda Elazouar) showering in Nina’s flat. Turns out he’s her boyfriend … much to Dan’s obnoxiously paternal consternation. Even more surprising, Dan discovers he’s got a half-brother named Finn Clarke (Kit Harrington) who his Dad fathered with the cleaning lady (Is their old man Arnold Schwarzenegger?) and promptly abandoned. Finn’s got an axe to grind with Dan for popping their pop, so he frames Dan and Jessica for a bank robbery he perpetrated and they and their family must go on the run with all roads leading to Paris.
“The Family Plan 2” is once again directed by Simon Cellan-Jones (with whom Wahlberg also worked on “Arthur the King”) and scripted by David Coggeshall. Despite having the same creative team and star, the proceedings aren’t nearly as inspired as its predecessor. Wahlberg needs a haircut and his line readings recall Dirk Diggler’s bad acting from “Boogie Nights.” Harrington is in danger of being typecast as a bastard (I’m surprised his character’s surname wasn’t Snow!) and his Irish accent sounds like he’s impersonating Conor McGregor’s piss-poor performance from “Road House” (2024). Faring better are Monaghan and Elazouar – who are both likable and appealing enlivening otherwise lifeless scenes.
The picture does come alive for a few fleeting moments during a fun car chase through the streets of Paris set to Plastic Bertrand’s “Ça Plane Pour Moi,” and while the sequence serves as a shot in the arm it’s not enough to carry the day.
When I think of family plans my thoughts often go to cell phones, but this franchise is beginning to feel a bit like a cinematic prison. It’s a Christmas gift best not given or exchanged for something better.