Movie Review: Half Brothers Has Heart But Not Always Rhythm
Half Brothers is a warm comedy that feels like a 2000s film with themes of “cultural switches” and the mishaps of a crazy family. Its bathes in cliches that might put off some, but is anchored by its heart and a very modern approach to a sincere dilemma: sacrifice. Out to VOD on December 4, Luke Greenfield’s dramedy is being released around the same time as the phenomenal Farewell Amor, which shares a similar plot of having the head of a family move to the US to support it. Yet, years pass by, and he ends up making a new family and life without his other family. For this case, Juan Pablo Espinosa plays Flavio and he is an absolute charm as the father of Renato (Luis Gerardo Méndez ) and Asher (Connor Del Rio).
Two “half-brothers” discover each other’s existence on their father’s death-bed: just a day before one (Renato) is about to get married. Resentment ensues on Renato’s end because Asher was able to grow up with the father he wanted and loved, but could not have because he lived in Mexico while his half-brother lived in the US. In perspective, this is totally screwed up, and you understand why there is a constant rage in Méndez’s take of Renato. I’d be totally mad if my beloved father left me to, supposedly, support me, and just ended up making another son with another woman who is not my mom. There is a rightful feeling of being replaced and rejected within Méndez’s Renato that explains why he is burdened by Asher, whom is a hippie, to the max, with good intentions that border annoying. In here, lies the amiable truth and very problem of the film.
HALF BROTHERS – Official Trailer [HD] – In Theaters December 4
Through mishaps and traps, a la 2000s films, the half-brothers wind up in a scavenger hunt/ road trip across country that was their father’s final wish as a way to make them bond. They are, immediately, thrusted into healing a very complex, gaping wound that, in real life, could take 20 years to fully resolve. Yet, on film, they barely have 2 hours. Thus, the dynamics between Renato and Asher are realistically toxic and restless even as they come out while driving around a car with a goat or with one landing the other in an immigration detention center. In the latter, and through flashbacks of Flavio, the film does try to confront how immigrants are treatedTERRIBLY, especially considering the weight of their personal and emotional sacrifices to do jobs that wealthier, racist people wouldn’t touch with a 5 foot pole. It is a dark, sobering moment, but amplifies the film’s struggle to find balance as either a sincere comedy or truthful drama.
Half- Brothers’ imbalance in tone causes any growth within characters, or between them, to feel forced rather than organically reached within 90 minutes. Because it wants to be a comedy, its light-heartedness can cut off Renato and Asher’s ability to get into the grit of the surreal, tragic circumstances that makes them brothers, but when the movie tries to pick up that trauma, it snips away its laughter. Frankly, I enjoyed Half Brothers as an easy, simple watch that tried to approach really hard issues, but it is because of its very simplicity in approaching societal and familial problems that it never reaches its fullest potential. It needed more time and, perhaps, a few re-writes, in order for its heart to be further exalted, but still, the it is there and undeniable. If the worst someone can say about your film is that it has a big heart and you wish it was bigger then that is not a bad compliment, especially in 2020.
