Half Brothers Movie Review

​

Opens in theaters Dec 4^th

“Half Brothers” is a multicultural (and multilingual) comedy about a road trip adventure with someone who you just met. But he is your brother, well half-brother. And when you are from a small town in Mexico, and this other guy is an ‘American Idiot’ – well how can you say “Road Trip”? “Viaje por Carretera”? Yeah, close enough…

Renato (played by Ian Inigo as a youngster) is very close to his father. His dad, named Flavio (played by Juan Pablo Espinosa) teaches young Renato about looking at things in new ways and how to work remote radio-controlled airplanes. But hard times fall on the small Mexican border village, and almost all the men pack up and go to ‘El Norte’ to try and find work. Flavio makes a promise to his young son that he intends to return to his wife and his boy.

Many years later, the grown up Renalto (played by Luis Gerardo Méndez) is an important VIP at a private aviation firm. He is bitter about his father’s departure, and still very angry that he never returned. He now despises all things American, and is not afraid to speak his mind. But he finds out that his father is in the U.S. on his death bed, and he would very much like to see Renato once more. Renato refuses, but his own Bride-To-Be tells him that he must go there, if just to clear the air between himself and his dying Papa. After all, Renato is very emotionally closed- off, and maybe this will make him a better person.

Renato goes to Chicago and chance run-in with a very obnoxious guy at a donut shop. He then goes to the hospital and finds out that not only had his father lived and stayed in America — his dad also married in America. Renalto’ mind is blown. But not as much as when he finds out he has a Brother, a Half Brother. Then this guy turns out to be the ‘obnoxious donut shop guy’. He is named Asher (played by Connor Del Rio). He is a free-spirited and free-wheeling, a person who believes more in karma than in hard work.

But Flavio has one important thing that he wants the brothers to do, and they must do it together. They must take a journey to the places in the past – the places that Flavio once stayed in his ‘temporary’ trip to America. Only at then end of the trip will the brothers know what Flavio did, and what happened to him – and why he had to make the decision not to return to the village in Mexico. He gives Renato and Asher a card that contains a key, and they need to go forth to discover and unlock the secrets.

Asher makes a side stop to rescue a ‘free range goat’, and the journey gets odder from that point on. They stop a factory where their father used to work. Now is shut down, but Flavio did hard work back in the days. But one day, he discovered a new use for the factory and became an important chief engineer. He met and fell in love with a beautiful woman executive. But he told her that his time was up, and he needed to go back home. He made his way to El Paso, but met up bad times and evil people. He was forced to pawn wedding ring for cash for a bus trip. He was caught by Border Patrol and almost died in jail. He was cared for at an abbey outside of town.

Renato and Asher learn all of this on the trip that they take together. And every time they stop and learn something new, they seem to bond closer. Well, at least they seem to not annoy and hate each other as much. That is probably a pretty good start. Both of the guys find that the other son has a bit of that thing that they miss about their father. Renato misses his Dad’s new and unusual way to thinking – but Asher has plenty of that. Asher misses the time that his Dad would work to guide him in his life. Renato seems to be pretty good at telling people what they should be doing.

“Half Brothers” is pretty nice update on an old trope of a “Road Trip Movie”. It takes a really unusual situation of a brother from Mexico who meets his (previously unknown) half-brother. Then it sets them out on a journey that they need to take together. The first part is set in Mexico, with Spanish language (and sub-titles). But it soon lands in the Land of Free and Home of Brave – where they both find out things about their common father.

Luis Gerardo Méndez does a great job playing the brother with a USA-sized chip on his shoulder. But even better is Connor Del Rio, who plays the odd-mannered American brother. He has a frantic energy that drives his performance. The two of them are paired together nicely and play off each other with great ease. They are fun to watch.

“Half Brothers” might not be the perfect “Road” movie, but it is not a bad one at all. Not bad by half!