By Curt Schleier

You can only pull a cow’s teats so often before it goes udderly dry.  It’s the same with television series.

Sadly, that seems to be what happened with this special movie version of THE CLOSER, normally a TV blessing and one of TNT’s linchpins. Presumably, the suits said to themselves, ratings are always good for this show; why not milk this cash cow? 

Actually there are a lot of reasons.  But the only one that counts here is quality control.  If writing TV shows were easy, there’s be a lot more good ones.  Add the burden of making it a police drama and Holiday show, and you come up with Next of Kin, an illogical and silly movie that betrays the essence of THE CLOSER.

Deputy Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson (Kyra Sedgwick) brings a refreshing uniqueness to the detective genre.  Her southern charm and steely determination mask basic insecurities evident in the way she sneaks chocolate bars whenever she’s under stress.  But everything she normally does she does within the framework of legitimate police procedure.  So you spend the hour wondering who did it and/or how is she going to squirm the confession from the miscreant.

Your entire focus is on the show and viewers aren’t taken out of the moment wondering what were the writers thinking?  Why did Brenda Leigh or another character do something that seems to violate the show’s continuity?

Next of Kin starts out well.  The latest in the string of armored car robberies results in the death of two guards and the wounding of the driver.  Asst. Police Chief Will Pope (J.K. Simmons) takes the case from robbery-homicide and assigns it to Johnson’s priority homicide unit.  When one of the detectives protests because he’s been working on the case for almost a year, Pope replies:

“Are you suggesting that 11 months of failure is an argument for you remaining on the case?”


There plot holes in this story are big enough to engulf several doublewides.  I’m not going to bore you with all of them.  But suffice it to say that the wounded driver runs away.  Brenda discovers he’s gone back to Atlanta and follows him there -- but not officially.  In fact, she and her fiancé Fritz Howard (Jon Tenney) ostensibly are just visiting Brenda’s parents, Willie Ray (Frances Sternhagen) and Clay (Barry Corbin).

Question 1: If a trip to Atlanta is actually necessary, why the subterfuge?

Eventually, with the aid of Lts. Provenza (G.W. Bailey) and Flynn (Tony Denison) the driver is taken into custody, a bit illicitly but in custody nonetheless.  After spending the night in the Johnson house, they prepare to fly him back to L.A.  But the perp doesn’t cooperate.  At the gate, he yells, I have a bomb.  The police and prisoner in handcuffs have gone through security and established their legitimacy.  Do you think homeland security will keep two cops and a prisoner off the plane?  Yes.

Question 2: Why? 

Perhaps the answer is so we can all get to a heartwarming moment on an overstuffed recreational vehicle.  It’s the Holidays. All the airlines are booked.  So Brenda, her parents, fiancé, two detectives and the suspect pile into the Johnson family RV and drive across the country.  Yes they drive across the country.  The suspect sees how close the Johnson family is, laments that he had nothing similar growing up and forces Brenda to appreciate her own mom and dad.

All together, let’s tear up a little.

Question 3: If he feels that way, why did he leave his little brother back in L.A. to deal with the wrath of his fellow crooks?

Probably because there was a rush to get something that passed as a script finished in time.  Please note that there were two sets of writers and directors (one for each hour) which might account for the surprising lack of quality.