11 Jan The Family Plan (2023)

Macho Sex

This is a content filler, with no ambition to be excellent in any of the categories it enters. Marky is to my mind a poor action figure for reasons that are uninteresting. The filmmakers just punched tickets on other elements just to have something there.

There is one notable feature — quite remarkable actually. It is not enough to elevate this past my lowest evaluation.

The subtext in all these films is that the macho guy, especially if he is using violence for a laudable goal, is cool, sexy, virile. Beefcake helps. A stern visage, A woman, or better even a young girl who needs to be rescued or protected is almost necessary in these. Even remarking on that fact is tedious.

What’s notable here:

We had a professional assassin, someone in a ‘family’ with a lover. This lover is attractive, fit, and obsessed with the sex — obsessed enough to hold it for a couple decades. She wants him back, not because of love, but because of sex.

Meanwhile, our superstud meets a fit olympic-level girl, has supersex after a roller coaster ride and produces a kid. He decides to abandon his old family for a new one. He suppresses what we are to believe is superhero status and lives a boring life. He schedules sex for Thursdays, but we see it is poor.

Then his past comes back and he has to recall his superstud persona. In an extended — but not explicit — scene she remarks that it is the best sex she has ever had. She likes the ‘new Dan’ much better.

There’ are some mechanics about the wife/family rejecting hi when they learn the truth, and later accepting him. There are fights to validate his commitment.

I do not recall any action film that was this explicit in mapping the thug qualities, however supposedly refined, to sex performance. The early Bond episodes come close in inference, but not on-screen dialog about the actual act. Mr/Mrs Smith was notably indirect.

Posted in 2024

Ted’s Evaluation — 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

IMDB