Kin can’t make good from a wonderfully bad Franco

Movie review: Kin

The Baker boys’ debut feature may not be fabulous, but somewhere in this wannabe young adult franchise lies a message about the power of guns, and how it transforms one’s place in the American social order.

Kin

2.5/5

Starring: Myles Truitt, Dennis Quaid, Jack Reynor, James Franco, Zoë Kravitz

Directed by: Josh Baker, Jonathan Baker

Running time: 1 hr 43 mins

Rating: PG-13

By Katherine Monk

It feels like it was based on yet another young adult novel series about gifted kids bracing for an uncertain and apocalyptic future, but Kin is an original film from brothers Josh and Jonathan Baker, two men from the advertising world who had an idea and turned it into a short film called Bag Man.

Bag Man was a hit at South by Southwest’s midnight program and told the story of a guy with a duffel bag. He took it everywhere — and we didn’t know why until it was revealed to contain a secret futuristic weapon. Kin is the feature length version of that idea, and it’s clearly designed to be a first instalment … in something that looks and feels a lot like a wannabe YA series.

Kin is the feature length version of an earlier short, and it’s clearly designed to be a first instalment … in something that looks and feels a lot like a wannabe YA series.

Exhibit number one is the central character: An outsider who appears to be just like everyone else, only lonelier. Young Eli (Myles Truitt) is just trying to find a way to earn some money collecting scrap metal from abandoned buildings when he stumbles into the aftermath of a shootout. Men in strange combat fatigues are lying on the ground, and near them lies a strange black case. It looks like a blu-ray player. But when Eli touches it, it transforms in his hands into a gun-like thing with a holographic site and glowing red insides.

Eli tells no one about his discovery. He’s actually so freaked out he leaves the black box where he found it: an abandoned Detroit warehouse. Yet, he can’t stop thinking about it, so he ventures back to the concrete shell in search of the magical thing. This time, the bodies are gone and the gun isn’t where it was. It’s now at the bottom of a concrete shaft, but Eli can’t stop himself. He feels compelled to retrieve it.

When he gets home, however, he faces new challenges. First, his older brother Jimmy (Jack Reynor) has returned from prison. Second, his dad (Dennis Quaid) has stumbled across his stash of purloined scrap and insists Eli return the goods, and apologize to his victims.

Because Eli is African-American and the adopted son of this white family, he never really felt like he belonged. Also, because there is no matriarch (we learn she passed away years ago), Eli’s biological past remains a complete mystery. All he has is a strange scar on his hand — apparently the only thing his biological parents gave him before disappearing.

Eli is a good kid but a total loner, so when Jimmy suddenly rushes him into a road trip, he’s reticent to go along, but eventually agrees. What he doesn’t know is that Jimmy is being chased by some very bad people lead by a rather greasy looking James Franco.

Inevitably, they pick up a stripper with a heart of gold (Zoe Kravitz) and make their way to California, with Eli closely guarding his secret weapon — until, inevitably, he’s called upon to use it.

Truitt is marvelous in this debut, and just about everyone earns big points for commitment to a tough premise, but the pulsing science-fiction chase this movie set out to be ends up feeling a little unbalanced as a result of mixing tragedy and comedy in quick succession.

Truitt is marvelous in this debut, and just about everyone earns big points for commitment to a tough premise, but the pulsing science-fiction chase this movie set out to be ends up feeling a little unbalanced as a result of mixing tragedy and comedy in quick succession.

Moreover, there’s practically no moment of moral reflection outside of a few cursory lines about doing “the right thing” — because “that’s what good men do.”

The whole idea of superior firepower and how it changes one’s place in the world is what this movie seems to be about, yet it never actually addresses it in context or even metaphorically. It’s as if we’re just supposed to think the ray-gun is cool, and wait for Eli to vaporize the threats around him. The Baker brothers deliver on that score, but without any deeper sensibilities about the consequences of violence and a separation between what’s “cool” and what’s criminal — perhaps even completely immoral — this movie misses the core of the YA cause: The idea that the next generation can approach old problems in a completely new way.

The whole idea of superior firepower and how it changes one’s place in the world is what this movie seems to be about, yet it never actually addresses it in context or even metaphorically. It’s as if we’re just supposed to think the ray-gun is cool, and wait for Eli to vaporize the threats around him.

Perhaps they intend to fix those snags in a sequel, but given they had modern-day Detroit as their backdrop and a gun as the symbol of the future, it seems the Baker boys could have been far more fabulous at designing their prototype.

@katherinemonk

THE EX-PRESS, August 31, 2018

-30-

Review: Kin

User Rating

2 (12 Votes)

Summary

2.5Score

When a teenager named Eli (Miles Truitt) finds a futuristic weapon in an abandoned warehouse, he tests the ties that make a family. The whole idea of superior firepower and how it changes one’s place in the world is what this movie seems to be about, yet it never actually addresses it in context or even metaphorically. It’s as if we’re just supposed to think the ray-gun is cool, and wait for Eli to vaporize the threats around him. -- Katherine Monk

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