Summary
When his older brother gets out of jail with a heavy debt on his head, Eli hits the road with him, not knowing that Jimmy has some huge secrets he’s keeping. Eli has his own secret though; a devastating high tech weapon of mysterious origin.
More Than Checking Boxes
“Kin” checks a lot of my boxes. Brothers, Sci Fi, emotionally driven, more drama than action, well acted, and tightly plotted. If I was a kid when this movie came out, it probably would have been a favorite of mine. As an older middle aged version of that same kid, I’m not so sure how I feel about it.
From the setup I was digging this one. Eli (Myles Truitt, “Dragged Across Concrete”)is biking into the dilapidated part of town and ripping copper wiring out of old industrial buildings when he happens upon a couple mysterious dead bodies. They have some super high tech, like alien high tech armor on and when Eli touches a long box one of them is lying near, it opens up into a rifle that looks like something out of a video game.
When he gets home his dad (Dennis Quaid, “Dragonheart”) has a real earful for his adopted son whose stash of scavenged goods he’s found. He gets a good talking to about taking what doesn’t belong to you and a lot of the sort of midwestern dad wisdom that a general contractor would have ready for his kid who got suspended from school for fighting and got caught stealing.
He also has a bit of news for him. His older brother by adoption who he has barely ever known is getting out of jail that night and will be living with them for a few weeks. When Jimmy (Jack Reynor, “Free Fire”) arrives, it is quickly apparent that things aren’t going to go well with him at the house. He has a huge protection debt to pay off to some really bad dudes and they are coming for that money or the whole family is in for it.
On top of it all, two armored figures similar to those found dead in the beginning of the movie arrive to clean up the dead bodies and notice the missing weapon. They bring up a HUD display that shows exactly where the weapon is and blast off toward it on the raddest motorcycles they can get their hands on.
From there the movie turns into a hybrid action drama road trip sci fi extravaganza for the next hour and change. Even with a PG13 rating it manages to get the heart racing a bit and with a style that reminded me of a kid friendly version of neon pumping drug fueled crime thrillers.
Unfortunately, it stays that way only till the last ten minutes or so. I’m gonna spoil the heck out of this movie, so be warned.
***FROM HERE ON OUT THERE BE SPOILERS***
Throughout the film the identities of the armored figures chasing Eli and Jimmy has been hidden. In fact, they don’t even know they are being chased. Eli doesn’t even know that Taylor, the guy Jimmy owes money to, has killed their dad right in front of Jimmy who barely escaped with his life by shooting Taylor’s life long friend and enforcer. Taylor is chasing them down but Eli has no idea until he sees it on the news. He flips out on Jimmy and they both end up in police station where all of them, brothers, gangsters, and mystery men descend upon each other.
Through the encounter, Eli kills all of Tyler’s men, Tyler gets a shot off at Jimmy, and the mystery men stop time with the bullet in mid air. They then take off their masks, revealing that they are from another dimension, Eli is one of them hidden on earth for safety and that they will be back for him when he’s older so he can help them win some futurewar. They ask for the weapon and disappear into a dimensional gateway but not before moving the bullet so it will kill Tyler.
This ending was the worst. At no point does this eleven year old boy grapple with killing so many men. He acts like finding out he is from another dimension happens every other week. He is never given a real chance to do the right thing by returning the weapon until they show up and explain everything by talking to him. The shroud of mystery over who these soldiers are is torn apart by them doing a plot dump right at the end of the movie?
WtF?
Why would the writers ruin a perfectly good movie with such a terrible ten minutes at the end of it?
It would have been way better if Eli had returned the gun willingly and never found out who the soldier people were. The drama of these brothers learning to look after each other is totally undercut by finding out Eli belongs somewhere other than earth and having them stop time with a bullet in mid air is such tacky schlocky deus ex machine bs that it makes the stakes and adventures they went through up till this point seem pointless.
It’d be like having a romantic comedy where a woman who never felt like she belonged fell in love but not easily with a real scoundrel but they learned to work at love together and on the day of their wedding when the priest says does anyone object, a prince from the fey wild shows up and tells her she is actually a princess of the elves and he is her destined husband but he will return for her in 6 years. Oh. and that scoundrel? Here’s a sex doll for him.
It’s the worst.
I was literally ready to buy this movie till the last ten minutes and now, I can’t even say I recommend you check it out.
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