Kenner (1968)
Roy Kenner arrives in Bombay hot on the heels of dope smuggler Tom Jordan, the man who murdered his partner. Combing the city for clues to Jordan's whereabouts, Kenner crosses paths with 9-year-old Saji. Saji soon helps save Kenner from the lethal drug dealers, and takes Kenner to his home. Love soon blossoms between Kenner and Anasuya, Saji's mother, and Saji comes to see him as a father. But Kenner's obsession with vengeance threatens to engulf this accidental family in tragedy.
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Highly Overrated But Still Good
A Brilliant Conflict
This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.
The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.
Given that Jim Brown is the lead actor of this movie, and the movie has a one word title, one may understandably think that they will be getting a blaxploitation movie like "Shaft", "Slaughter", or "Hammer". However, the movie was actually made about three years before the blaxploitation genre got started, and is instead a fairly serious drama. Nothing immediately wrong with that, but the actual execution is pretty dismal. While the movie was filmed on location in India, which does at times give the movie a colorful and exotic backdrop, the movie has a very dull story. The thin story is extremely padded out, when it is not predictable or relying on coincidence to try and keep things moving. The performances are nothing to shout about, with Brown (who has never been a good actor in my opinion) clearly showing clear discomfort and no enthusiasm. If you want to see a good Jim Brown movie from the 1960s, choose "Dark of the Sun" instead.
In the opening scene, Jim Brown is piloting his boat across a large harbor, heading to dock. Cut to his shipmate, below decks, cooking a pan of eggs. Next scene, the boat is docked and Jim Brown is supervising the loading or unloading of stuff. Cut again to the shipmate below -- he's still standing over a pan of eggs. That's no way to treat eggs. "Kenner" only gets worse from there.
I see that from the lack of comments that this film does not make the rounds on TV that often. It is not on video nor DVD. I saw this film recently. It was on a tape that I had that was taped from TV many years ago. Now I know why I did not remember this picture. Jim Brown plays an American Sailor who goes to Bombay India, to search for a guy that cheated him out of some money. He gets tangled up with a young boy that is searching for his American father. The acting is horrible and the story makes nearly no sense at all. The photography is so so, but should have been much better. This film was made in 1969 when MGM had changed hands, and the film quality started to lack. This film should remain in the vaults. See it if you are a Jim Brown fan, otherwise beware. * star