More about Charlie’s new show KIN.
- CHARLIE COX – IN TELEVISION > KIN > PERIPHERALS > STILLS
Daredevil himself, Charlie Cox, leads a stellar cast in by-the-numbers crime drama Kin
ByAlex McLevy
Is there a limited number of possible stories when it comes to gangster dramas? Kin, the newest offering from streaming service AMC+, certainly acts like it. Plot-wise, it’s an entirely paint-by-numbers affair; anyone who’s seen a contemporary tale about mobsters, gangsters, or any like-minded group of relatives who like to keep criminal wrongdoing in the family, will surely see most of the major narrative turns coming long before they arrive. From the inter-familial dynamics to the inciting incident that kicks off a serious turf struggle among warring elements of Irish drug cartels in Dublin, there’s very little here that fans of the genre won’t have seen before. So thank goodness, then, that the show packs its roster with ace character actors and potent, charismatic performers, each one giving their all to this fairly generic material. They make the shopworn clichés sing, once again proving that, with the right cast, even halfway-decent material can come alive.
The show kicks off with the return of a prodigal son: Michael Kinsella (Charlie Cox, in his first lead TV role since the end of Daredevil) has recently been paroled, following his incarceration for some unknown but apparently fairly notorious act of violence. He’s picked up by brother Jimmy (Emmet J. Scanlan), and during a welcome-home party, the somewhat taciturn Michael slowly gets up to speed on the various dealings involving his criminal family, including Jimmy’s wife Amanda (Clare Dunne) and her two teenage sons, his mother (Orphan Black’s Maria Doyle Kennedy), and patriarch Frank (Game Of Thrones’ Aiden Gillen, nicely underplaying as usual), among others. It seems the Kinsella family’s usual mid-level drug operation is being squeezed by local trafficking head Eamon Cunningham (Ciarán Hinds), whose supply the Kinsella rely on, and who is increasingly insisting they operate as essentially an extended wing of his empire.
SOURCE: AVCLUB
