Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		5.0
Extras		4.0
Overall		3.5

Kin Blu-ray Movie Review

The Fabulous Baker Boys.

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 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Kin is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. The IMDb lists Arri Alexa cameras as having digitally captured the imagery, with everything being finished at a 2K DI. Though shot digitally, the Bakers and cinematographer Larkin Sieple have toyed with things in post to achieve a somewhat grittier, more traditionally filmic look, with results that can look fairly mottled at times (look at screenshot 19, especially the sky). That said, detail levels are routinely quite high throughout this presentation, though a surplus of dark sequences can tend to mask things on occasion (several long scenes take place in the nearly blacked out warehouse where Eli finds the gun, and there are a lot of dimly lit or kind of weirdly lit scenes later in the film, including the club scene that introduces Milly). The film has some rather artful if intermittent special effects, many of which were achieved practically, or at least partially practically. The interweaving of the practical and digital effects is typically well done, though those wanting a nonstop array of whiz bang visual effects will probably find this film disappointing on that level. A few "arty" shots can look fairly soft and ill defined (see screenshot 18), but on the whole this is a sharp and well defined looking presentation which should please the film's fans.

Kin Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Kin's DTS:X track is quite impressive, though rather like the film's "on again, off again" presentation of visual effects, the audio presentation here has moments of almost overpowering energy interspersed with quieter, more dialogue driven, moments. Though never really clearly "explained", there are huge washes of a kind of thundering sound that combines overhead washes with some rumbly LFE in the opening warehouse scenes which I assume is meant to hint at aliens arriving. Later scenes, including several moments when Eli is forced to use his new "toy", also offer some really impressive panning effects and clear overhead placement of things like explosions and/or gunfire. A couple of kind of tangential moments, as in one scene where Eli learns to make "donuts" with a truck, also offer some nicely immersive surround activity. The film has a rather interesting score by Mogwai which makes excellent use of the surround channels. Dialogue is routinely delivered cleanly and clearly on this problem free track.

Kin Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentary with Co-Directors Jonathan and Josh Baker and Screenwriter Daniel Casey


• Thicker Than Water: The Making of Kin (1080p; 1:51:25) is a pretty exhaustive set of featurettes covering virtually every aspect of the production, with some excellent interviews and lots of behind the scenes footage.


• Enhanced Visual FX Breakdown (1080p; 13:52) is another really well done (albeit significantly shorter) piece, with two of the FX gurus on the film equipped with tablets where they can advance an effects sequence basically frame by frame as they discuss what's going on (adding graphics to the imagery as they go). One of the interesting thing that is made evident here is how many of the effects were practical, or a combination of practical and CGI.


• Bag Man: Original Short (1080p; 14:39) is the piece that gave spark to this project, available here with an optional commentary by the Bakers.


• Deleted Scenes (1080p; 11:52) also includes brief introductory comments by editor Mark Day.


• Learned Behavior: Special Features at Work (1080p; 59:14) is a kind of hilariously "meta" piece with a who's who of folks appropriately sitting in director's chairs and discussing bonus content.


• Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 2:27)

Kin Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

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.