Respond to these rapid questions in our Kin quiz and we will tell you which Kin character you are. Play it now.
While the promotional materials for “Kin” claim that it comes from the creators of “Arrival” and “Stranger Things,” it’s highly unlikely that most viewers will compare it to those previous efforts. “Kin” premieres on Netflix on October 12. Fans of “Laserblast,” a super-cheesy 1978 exploitation film that managed to simultaneously rip off both “Carrie” and “Star Wars,” may find themselves thinking about the similarities between this film and the film “Laserblast,” which is perhaps best known today for being the subject of an especially memorable “MST3K” riff. At the very least, that film, for all of its artistic flaws, knew exactly what it was trying to accomplish: provide undiscerning viewers with 90 minutes of low-grade explosives, sheet cake, and a hero who appeared to have had his entire body feathered before each take. The same cannot be said for “Kin,” which is an incoherent and at times off-putting mess that veers wildly and unconvincingly between road movie, family drama, violence-filled crime thriller and bizarre science fiction thriller before arriving at a finale so bizarre that even if I gave it away here and now, many of you would assume I was joking.
He lives with his tough-but-loving adoptive father, Hal (Dennis Quaid), in a rough Detroit neighborhood with his troubled 14-year-old African-American brother, Jimmy (Myles Truitt). Hal has lost his wife and is incarcerated, and he is trying to raise Eli in the wake of the death of his wife and the imprisonment of his biological son, Jimmy (Dennis Quaid) (Jack Reynor). On one occasion, Eli sneaks into an abandoned building in order to find copper wire to sell. There, he discovers the bodies of what appears to be a group of futuristic soldiers, as well as a mysterious hi-tech gun that responds to his touch without him having to think about it. The lure of the weapon is too strong for Eli to resist and, when he returns later, the bodies have vanished, but he has managed to locate the weapon and bring it home with him, despite the fact that he initially fled the scene. meanwhile, the recently released Jimmy returns home and brings with him a new set of problems: having borrowed $60,000 from local crime boss Taylor (played, predictably, by James Franco), he now has to repay the money immediately or else bad things will happen, not only to him but also to his father and his brother Eli (played by James Franco).
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Kin Quiz
When Dad refuses to look the other way while he robs the safe at the construction company he owns and runs, Jimmy, Taylor, and some of Taylor’s goons break in to take the money for themselves and hide it in the safe. Not surprisingly, things quickly spiral out of control, and Jimmy decides to hit the road with both the money and Eli, informing the youngster that they are taking a short road trip to Tahoe for a few days. Inevitably, Eli brings his new possession with him on his journey and when Jimmy, inevitably, gets into a scrape at the strip club where they have taken his brother out for a good time (not that good a time—this is one of those PG-13 strip clubs where no one takes anything off), Eli pulls it out and gives a brief demonstration of its incredible destructive power before the two escape, accompanied by friendly stripper Milly (Zoe Kravitz). The three of them continue on, completely unaware that they are being pursued by a number of different parties: the police, who want to apprehend Jimmy for what happened back in Detroit; Taylor, who wants to kill him; and a pair of those otherworldly soldier types who have tracked down the weapon and are willing to go to any length to recover it.
Also, you will find out which character are you in this Kin quiz.
About the quiz
Jonathan and Josh Baker’s short film “Bag Man” was the inspiration for the film, which combined impressive visual effects with a certain amount of dramatic lyricism to great effect. Although the Bakers (who are making their feature directorial debuts) and screenwriter Daniel Casey were attempting to expand the basic premise of that short into a feature, they ended up complicating the story by including elements that were beyond their collective comprehension. The combination of the elements on display here can result in a successful film—Jeff Nichols did a pretty magnificent job of it with the criminally underappreciated 2016 film “Midnight Special”—but rather than complementing one another, they end up clashing in increasingly obtrusive and confounding ways in this film. Another issue is the remarkable lack of tension in the film; at times, the pacing is so languid that the film comes across as exhausting rather than exhausted, which is another problem. In addition to all of this, there’s a borderline insane conclusion that includes mound after mound of clumsy last-minute explanation, an overt set-up for an impending sequel, and a prominent celebrity cameo that’s more chutzpah than style. This is the only explanation that makes sense: the filmmakers may have hoped that audiences would remember the film more for its bizarre conclusion than for the fact that they had just watched what is essentially the story of a troubled adolescent who finds some form of power and purpose in his life once he gets his hands on a gun, which is a dubious concept under any circumstances and one that rings especially hollow at this particular time.
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The only thing that stands out about this film is Truitt, who imbues Eli with a depth of feeling that the film itself never comes close to matching. While Quaid’s performance as the gruff father is adequate, his presence doesn’t make much of a difference; Kravitz’s abilities are wasted on a nondescript role; and Carrie Coon appears so arbitrarily during the final scenes that you’ll wonder how much of her part was left on the cutting room floor. There’s also Reynor, who is supposed to be a loudmouthed jerk but who does so in such a stridently irritating manner that many viewers will be actively rooting for Franco’s character to track him down and stomp on his head with a stump grinder. The film’s leading man, James Franco, reprises his role as Taylor, a vicious murderer who enjoys listening to Joni Mitchell in his spare time (Taylor may be a vicious murderer, but he enjoys listening to Joni Mitchell), this time in a series of scenes that feel as if Franco simply decided to make things up as he went along. After all is said and done, Franco does appear in one of my favorite scenes, a scene in which he punishes one of his minions for misbehaving by ordering him to stand in the corner for a time-out. Depending on how “Kin” stumbles to its conclusion, moviegoers may wish to retaliate against its creators in the same way.
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