Time travel is a topic that Hollywood has been fascinated with. From “The Terminator” to “Back to the Future” and even “The Butterfly Effect,” one of the big topics has been how traveling back in time and changing even the smallest of things changes the rest of time that follows it. Directors Jonathan and Josh Baker (Bag Man) take this concept and combine it with the extended familial ties that bind in their new film, “Kin”.
Eli (Myles Truitt) lives with his adopted father, Hal (Dennis Quaid), in Detroit, and struggles with the loss of his adopted mother. One day while he is looking for copper in abandoned buildings, he comes across bodies of a futuristic group of people and takes one of their weapons. Shortly after, his adopted brother Jimmy (Jack Reynor) returns home after six years in prison and when a previous owed debt comes calling in Taylor (James Franco), a plan goes horribly wrong involving the weapon Hal found, putting Hal and Jimmy on the run not only from the bad guys but also from the cohorts of the people who own the weapon to begin with.
There is some CGI here, but it is done well and not to excess. This is a dark story, and the shooting style matches it well. Truitt does a very good job in the lead, showing great range, but Franco really turns it on here. His balance of a need for vengeance while trying to keep his cool really showed him as an intellectual type of gangster, which was really neat to watch.
The script itself was fine, but there seemed to be some pretty big plot holes that tried to take me out of my suspension of disbelief. The side of the story that dealt with the group from the future seemed to be rushed to a very brief conclusion, and with a film that is the better part of two hours, they could have balanced that a bit more in some sections that seemed to drag. There seems to be a possibility of more films to continue this story, and I really did like it overall, so that may not be a bad thing, so I will recommend this as a weekend matinee viewing.