Next Of Kin (2018) - Review

Starring: Archie Panjabi, Jack Davenport, Viveik Kalra & Claire Skinner

Written By: Natasha Narayan & Paul Rutman

Directed By: Justin Chadwick & Jamie Childs

Certificate: 15

 

If there's a story or an ongoing situation that remains a big enough talking point in the news, you can make a safe bet that at some point it will end up being portrayed and realized on screen. Next Of Kin is the best proof you could want of this – a six-part drama/thriller that principally deals with the themes of extremism and radicalization. In this respect, it's a very contemporary series, however many of the issues it's concerned with are notoriously sensitive subjects, needing a sensible, thought-out approach to really work. So does Next Of Kin have this tact, and does it hold up as a drama series too?

 

GP Mona Harcourt and her family are awaiting the return of her brother, Kareem, from Pakistan, only to receive the devastating news that he has been kidnapped and killed by a terrorist organization. Kareem's son, Danny, has been missing from university for six weeks, and when he's discovered in Lahore, the counter-terrorism unit ask for Mona's help in contacting him and bringing him in for questioning in the UK. But things quickly spiral out of control, and the family's lives are slowly drawn in and consumed by betrayal, conspiracy and murder...

 

A show like Next Of Kin requires a strong cast and engaging characters to form its backbone before it can get on to the details of its story, and thankfully that's exactly what it has. The cast on the whole are pretty great, especially those playing the Harcourts, who together make up a convincing family unit. They share some brilliant chemistry with each other and, crucially, the first episode dedicates a good bit of time showing what their lives were like before things start to go wrong for them. The scenes of them preparing for Kareem's return feel authentic, and everyone stands out in their own way. Archie Panjabi finally gets the leading role she deserves as Mona, and does a fantastic job. The same applies to Jack Davenport, as Mona's husband, Guy, and while Guy isn't as compelling a character as Mona, he's still very likeable. The rest of the family, such as Rahana, Omar, Ani and Mona's mother all serve as decent supporting characters that help in fleshing out some of the more central characters.

 

So Next Of Kin can boast a solid cast – but what about the actual story? The run-up to the show's premiere quite rightly and admirably made it no secret that it would be dealing with themes such as radicalization. In fact, along the way it even picks up more specific areas such as preventing the spread of extremism, racism, Islamophobia, LGBT undertones, and the harm that unconscious and underlying assumptions can make. Next Of Kin has all of this and more lying in the palm of its hand … which is why I was so disappointed that it does practically nothing with it. It's there, and we the audience can see it, but the show itself says nothing about it, at least not until the final episode, which is far too late in the day. For example, early on we see what should feel like a particularly striking scene of Mona's mother watching Islamophobic comments on the news following a London terror attack. It's well-filmed and well-acted, but then it's just dropped and the show doesn't bother saying anything about it. Likewise, we have Ani, an LGBT character who feels like she should've had her own subplot. There was the potential to explore what life is like for Ani as a lesbian woman in a Muslim household, but instead this theme is just … there, and never really gets any development beyond one or two brief moments. This may not be the best comparison for me to make, given the vastly different context between the two, but look at one of the most political stories from recent Doctor Who: The Zygon Invasion. In that particular story, we find themes similar to Next Of Kin, such as radicalization and extremism. However, The Zygon Invasion has something clear to say about these issues, whereas Next Of Kin just shows them to us, without adding its own voice. The amount of potential in Next Of Kin that goes to waste is honestly the biggest disappointment of this series, especially when my main reason for watching in the first place was to see what it wanted to say about the issues it deals with.

 

There is some compensation for this however, as while the show lacks voice, it does at least function as a half-decent thriller. In almost every episode, there are scenes filled with tension and uncertainty, and the plot takes plenty of twists and turns that I didn't see coming. (Spoiler Warning!) One particular moment that still sticks out in my mind is when DS Townsend is shot whilst trying to retrieve Danny. I hadn't expected that the series would go much further after Kareem's death and Mona's non-lethal gunshot wound in the previous episode, but to see Townsend so suddenly and brutally killed definitely came as a shock. Whenever a scene gets particularly tense, it usually always ends with a satisfying sense of catharsis too, with one of my favourites being Guy outright punching a racist in the street. And with a surprisingly large number of chase scenes, characters deceiving and going behind each other's backs, and the constant threat of more terror attacks in later episodes, Next Of Kin certainly ticks the boxes for a serviceable thriller.

 

Viewing Next Of Kin as a thriller is probably the best way of watching it, as many plot developments simply require too much suspension of disbelief to go alongside the serious tone it keeps trying to reach. Although I've no problem with Next Of Kin trying to be a serious drama, it keeps undermining itself with a lot of errors that feel quite obvious, even to someone like me who can usually overlook things like this. Many viewers pointed out the issue of the Harcourts rushing to prepare a surprise party for Kareem, even though he's still in Pakistan, hasn't boarded a plane yet and the flight would take a good 7-8 hours. Beyond this you also have Mona sending money via online transaction to Danny in Lahore, using Guy's bank account, and then being surprised when the police find out about it and call them in for questioning. Who on Earth thinks they can do something like that and have it go unnoticed? We also have things such as Mona's remarkably quick recovery from being shot by the police, and how quickly she's able to forgive them. In fact, the counter-terrorism unit we see throughout this series come across as really incompetent, even reckless at times, and I can hardly blame the higher-ups suspending Claire Skinner's character, DCI Barnes, in the final episode. Ordinarily a couple of errors in a series like this doesn't bother me, but in Next Of Kin, they're so plentiful that it's hard not to notice them.

 

The biggest flaws with Next Of Kin lie clearly within its script, as I have little to complain about anything else. The characters and performances are generally solid, and so are the production values. Next Of Kin feels like a confidently produced series, and it's set apart from other recent ITV dramas thanks to elements such as the impressive location work. Setting the show against backdrops such as London and Lahore creates a sense of importance, and something bigger than you could get in just one country. Much of the location work in what I presume is the real Lahore looks great too, and once again has an air of authenticity. The London setting comes with a nice sense of variety too, from the shady dilapidated hideouts of terrorist cells, to the offices and operations of the counter-terrorism unit, directors Justin Chadwick and Jamie Childs really help bring the visuals to life.

 

If you can't already tell, I'm incredibly conflicted about Next Of Kin, and my mind is constantly back and forth thinking about what did work, and what didn't (rather like this review). It has a fair bit that works and that I liked, such as the cast, the characters and the thrill element. But what really damages my estimation of it is the fact that it lets me down on the main thing I wanted to see, merely showing the issues its concerned with, rather than addressing them and having something of significance to say about them. For the most part, I enjoyed watching Next Of Kin, and its a decent six-part drama, but I'd hoped it would be more than that and it'd be something truly special, but sadly it falls short of this title.

 

 

Next Of Kin

 

6/10