Kin (2018) [Blu-ray]
Action | Sci-Fi

KIN, a pulse-pounding crime thriller with a sci-fi twist, is the story of an unexpected hero destined for greatness. Chased by a vengeful criminal (James Franco), the feds and a gang of otherworldly soldiers,? a recently released ex-con (Jack Reynor) and his adopted teenage brother (Myles Truitt) are forced to go on the run with a weapon of mysterious origin as their only protection.

Storyline: Co-directors Jonathan Baker and Josh Baker's Sci-Fi action thriller features James Franco, Zoe Kravitz, and Dennis Quaid. A young boy (Myles Truitt) finds a powerful otherworldly weapon, which he uses to save his older adoptive brother (Jack Reynor) from a crew of thugs. Before long, the two of them are also pursued by federal agents and mysterious mercenaries aiming to reclaim their asset.

Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman, November 19, 2018 In what may be one of the more peculiar "mash ups" in recent cinematic history, Kin attempts to be both a portrait of a young inner city youth struggling with family problems and a science fiction "spectacular" featuring what appears to be a high tech alien weapon somewhat mysteriously left in an abandoned warehouse. Elijah Solinski (Myles Truitt) is a young African American kid living in the almost wartorn looking urban environment of Detroit with his widowed adoptive father Hal (Dennis Quaid). Eli has been getting into increasing trouble at school, including fistfighting bullies who have the temerity to mention his deceased mother. Hal, a hard working construction company owner, simply doesn't have time to "helicopter parent" his errant son, though he attempts to pass along whatever wisdom he can, including the breaking news that "life is hard". Hal does express some concern, though, that Eli needs to be careful of older brother Jimmy (Jack Reynor), a convict with a long and troubled history who has just been released from prison. Jimmy is coming back home for a few days until he can get his act together and move on to a life outside of stir. Meanwhile, it's shown that Eli is a bit of an entrepreneur, traveling on his bike to various rundown and supposedly empty buildings where he harvests things like copper cable to sell to a local junkyard. In one of those "business trips", Eli wanders into some horrifying carnage, where a bunch of helmeted victims lie dead in a warehouse, one with a weirdly glowing gun like object next to him (it?). Eli is transfixed, but when the "corpse" suddenly jerks in true horror film fashion, Eli hightails it out of the place in a big hurry. Running parallel to these developments is an ultimately interlinked subplot involving Jimmy's debt to local crime lord Taylor Balik (James Franco), which perhaps predictably leads to calamity. Eli has since returned to the warehouse, where all the bodies have disappeared, but where he finds the alien weapon and begins to futz around with it, giving him an immediate sense of power that he has probably lacked for any number of reasons. Also probably predictably, the aforementioned calamity sends Jimmy and Eli on the lam, with Eli's new "find" accompanying the duo, waiting to be put to good use.

Now quite surprisingly brothers Jonathan and Josh Baker manage to pull off quite a bit of Kin rather well, huge tonal variances notwithstanding. But I'm probably going to get on my soapbox for a minute here and simply state that some of the underlying content in the film seems to definitely be lacking a moral compass. That aforementioned calamity won't be spoiled here, other than to say it paints Jimmy in such an unfavorable light that it becomes hard to root for him as he attempts to establish a bond with his adoptive brother. And even the calamity itself is kind of weirdly shunted off to the side, as if to say, "no biggie, just keep moving, nothing to see here." But perhaps the most unsettling aspect to Kin, subliminal as it may be, is that Eli "finds himself" courtesy of his relationship with a weapon. It seems downright disingenuous to ignore this element, since it's fairly clearly depicted (you can virtually feel Eli's self esteem growing as he plays with the gun at various points). There's also a through line involving some stolen money that, again, is kind of morally bankrupt and tends to make the whole "heroes on the run" angle of the film a bit problematic (maybe to say the least).

The film is somewhat vignette driven, as the boys try to escape the clutches of a very angry Taylor and, later, the police. There are also mysterious helmeted alien strangers who have ported in and seem to be on the hunt for the missing gun. The boys eventually connect with an unhappy stripper named Milly (Zoe Kravitz), who joins them on their road trip. It all comes together in a kind of The Matrix meets Terminator 2: Judgment Day climax (the second film is overtly referenced, in fact) where a certain reveal might have had a bit more resonance had Eli's childhood and adoption been more thoroughly dealt with earlier. Still, this is a rather audacious feature film debut by the Bakers, who show a definite talent for genre bending (again, perhaps to say the least). They also have supported some really fine performances here, especially by young Truitt, who is rarely off screen and who anchors the story with a nice combination of vulnerability and steely resolve.

Kin may simply be too much of a sui generis offering to appeal to either "kitchen sink" drama fans or science fiction aficionados, but the mere fact that those two demographics are being mentioned in the same breath may point out how unusual the Baker brothers' approach here is. Not all of this film worked for me, and in fact I found quite a bit of its underlying morality on the decidedly dubious side, but there is a really interesting "combo platter" here that may appeal to a particular niche of the viewing public that is the perhaps small intersection on the Venn Diagram of those two "populations" mentioned above. Technical merits (especially audio) are first rate, and Kin comes Recommended.

[CSW] -3.3- What a strange mixture of genres. This is one film that should get all three reactions from audiences. They will ether like it, hate it or be somewhere in the middle. When we got to the explanation for the weapon I wanted the sequel immediately. That said, I thought it smacked of a new form of the The Good, the Bad and the Ugly only you had the Good, Bad, and Innocent. In any case it is far too interesting as a dichotomy of characters to be dismissed as unimportant. It will make a lot more sense if you take it as comic book graphic novel story. Throw in the sci-fi aspect and it makes a perfect prequel. If you miss it now you will have to go back and see it once the hoped for sequel comes out. Any way you look at it, it is worth seeing.
[V4.0-A5.0] MPEG-4 AVC - No D-Box motion codes were available at the time of this rental although they are available now.


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