HALF BROTHERS

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Mexico, 1994 – Young Renato Murguia (Ian Inigo) is flying a model airplane just before his father Flavio (Juan Pablo Espinosa) comes home from work. Renato and Flavio had the best relationship and had a passion for planes. When the American dollar becomes more valuable than the peso, many fathers leave their families to America in search of better opportunities. Although Flavio promises to return soon, Renato is devastated.

25 years later, Renato (now played by Luis Gerardo Mendez) is the successful executive of an aviation company in Mexico. He is in an interview with an American reporter who asks him why he has yet to expand his business to the United States. Renato states that Americans are fat, lazy, stupid, and ignorant.

Renato is engaged to Pamela (Pia Watson) and is set to become a stepfather to her son Emilio (Mike A. Salazar). The boy is unusual and gets picked on at school (in part because he wears weird rubber masks), and according to Pamela, he feels that Renato doesn’t like him. The man is admittedly hesitant to approach Emilio because of how odd he is, but for Pamela’s sake, Renato makes an attempt to bond with him. It turns out insincere and doesn’t work.

At work, Renato is contacted by a woman named Katherine (Ashley Poole), who says she is Flavio’s wife. She tells him that Flavio is very ill and wishes for Renato to see him in Chicago. Renato has still felt angry at his father for never returning after all those years, and he has a flashback to the last time that Flavio called their house, and Renato refused to speak to him when he knew he wasn’t coming home. Renato tells Pamela about this, and she urges him to go because she knows that Flavio is the source of all of Renato’s issues.

Renato reluctantly ends up going to Chicago. He stops in a coffee shop where an obnoxious man named Asher (Connor Del Rio) is trying to make a social media video and attempting to get a free coffee. When he doesn’t have money, he asks Renato to spot him. He refuses, and when Asher presses him, Renato steps up to order his coffee and pay for all the doughnuts on the counter that Asher wanted and then having the barista throw them out to spite him.

Renato gets to the hospital to see Flavio for the first time in decades. Although Flavio is elated, Renato is still uneasy. To make things stranger for him, Asher enters the room and calls Flavio “Dad”, leading to Flavio to reveal to the two men that they are brothers. Both of them are displeased (Renato because Asher is annoying and Asher because Renato is a jerk), but Flavio asks them to do one last favor for him, to look for “Eloise” after delivering an envelope to a man named Evaristo (Jose Zuniga). Renato wants no part in this, and he leaves the room, even as Flavio pleads with him to listen.

The next day, Renato learns that Flavio has passed away. He attends the funeral and meets people that knew Flavio as “Frank”. When Asher sees Renato, he tries to convince him to fulfill their father’s dying wish, but Renato still doesn’t want to. He leaves the funeral in an Uber, but eventually relents and turns around to tell Asher to pick him up the next day from his hotel so they can head out.

With two days to the wedding, Renato is instantly annoyed when Asher shows up in a gaudy car playing loud music. On the road, Renato falls asleep and wakes up at a goat farm, finding Asher running toward the car with a small goat as three men with rifles chase Asher. The guys make it out of there, but Renato yells at Asher for stopping just for a goat farm. To make things more complicated, they are even further away from Evaristo. After the detour, they make it to an old factory where Flavio worked with Katherine, and Renato is stunned to see that they specialized in remote-controlled airplanes. They meet a man who tells them to find Evaristo at a bar.

The guys go to the bar and meet Evaristo, who provides them with a key. He speaks to Renato and tells him about how Flavio did everything he could to make enough money and return home. He worked in the factory for a while until he came up with the idea to make the toy planes, which really revitalized the company with help from Katherine. They had a good professional relationship that turned into a one night stand. Flavio felt guilty for betraying his wife, so he left in the middle of the night to try and make his way back home once he had enough money. Evaristo then gives Renato a box with another envelope that says “Mr. B”. Before they can learn anything else, Asher forces them to run again when he picks a fight with guys he made a bad pool bet with.

The two stop at a motel for the night. Renato talks to Pamela on the phone and tells her that Asher is clinically insane. Although he spoke in Spanish, Asher heard and understood him. Asher knows that people have dismissed him his whole life because of how eccentric he is, including Flavio. Renato apologizes to him, and they decipher the next clue in Flavio’s envelope. They figure out to go to a pawn shop in Oklahoma City.

The guys head out the next day to Oklahoma. When Asher learns about Emilio, he tells Renato that he is going to be a terrible dad because he comes off as insensitive. They reach the shop and meet Mr. B (Vincent Spano), the owner who presents them with Flavio’s wedding ring. Mr. B explains to the guys that when Renato was getting ready to return home, he was mugged in a bathroom by two men who saw him take out his money on the bus. Beaten and bloodied, he went to the shop and tried to pawn something off, and Mr. B said he would take the ring. Although Flavio didn’t want to give it up, Mr. B offered to buy the ring from him and keep it there until he had the money to buy it back. After Flavio did so, he attempted to cross the border but was arrested and thrown in jail. He got sick afterward, and the guards just dumped him on the side of the road to die. Before learning anything else, Mr. B gives them an envelope for Eloise. Renato is now fed up and just wants to go home. He grabs his bag and heads to an airport, leaving Asher behind.

When Renato gets to the airport, he discovers he doesn’t have his passport on him. With no other options, he calls Asher to apologize and ask for help. Their final destination is a church. The car breaks down on the way due to running out of gas, but Asher was confident that his own cases of ethanol would come in handy for this. Unfortunately, the goat ate through the containers and spilled the fuel everywhere. The guys walk until they stop by an empty cabin. They find bottles of moonshine and boil them to purify them. They also get high off the fumes from the gases.

While they have dinner that night, Asher reveals he threw away Renato’s passport to stop him from leaving so they can complete their dad’s request. Renato flips out on Asher and later locks him in the bathroom so that he can steal the car and get away. However, he becomes remorseful midway through and tries to turn around. Unfortunately, he is stopped and arrested by a border patrol officer. Renato is thrown into detention with other undocumented immigrants until he is bailed out the next morning. He briefly stops to look sadly at the other people in there.

Renato reunites with Asher in a diner and finds him with a black eye. He tells Renato that the cabin belonged to some rednecks they previously encountered at a gas station that mocked Asher for having the goat, which they also stole and are planning to eat. Renato and Asher return to the cabin and fill the place with gas to knock out the rednecks and save the goat.

The guys drive toward the border, but Renato decides to go to the church. They meet a nun who takes them to a cabinet that requires a code. The guys are stumped until they remember that Flavio always told them to see things from a different perspective. Renato looks at the envelope with “ELOISE” written on it and then turns it upside down to reveal the numbers code. They open the cabinet to find a DVD from Flavio explaining himself to his sons. After being left out by the prison guards, he set out to return home but felt remorseful for leaving Katherine without explanation. When he found her again, she had already given birth to Asher. Not wanting to leave another son behind, he made the difficult decision to call his wife to let her and Renato know that he wasn’t going to come home, and that was when Renato stopped caring for him. Flavio goes further and explains that although he did love Asher, he tried to recapture too much of Renato in him and distanced himself when he saw that Asher was totally different. He explains that he loved both of them and hopes that they can not only forgive him but grow as brothers. Both men are moved to tears.

The nun then shows the guys what Eloise really is – an actual plane built by Flavio to pass down to his sons. Now having a way of getting home, mere hours before the wedding, Renato gets ready to part ways with Asher and the goat. However, he changes his mind and invites them both to the wedding. They fly away together and return to Mexico.

After Renato and Pamela are married, Renato starts to make an earnest attempt to bond with Emilio by having him fly a toy plane. They then crash the toy into the yard of an irate man, forcing everyone at the party to run.


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Renato Murguia is a successful aviation executive in Mexico, but he has long harbored bitter resentment for his father Flavio after he left to the United States when the Mexican economy collapsed. Renato is contacted by Flavio's second wife Katherine to let him know that Flavio is gravely ill and wishes to see Renato in Chicago. Although reluctant, Renato's fiancé convinces him to make the trip.

In Chicago, Renato reunites with Flavio but finds that he had also fathered another son, a carefree American man named Asher. The two men are instantly put off by one another, but at Flavio's request, they take on a scavenger hunt to find "Eloise".

Asher gets the pair into trouble along the way, but Renato learns from multiple people the extreme struggles Flavio went through to get back home, including being beaten, robbed, and incarcerated. The men also slowly start to bond, even as Renato tries multiple times to get away. Just before Renato is set to return home, they make their last stop and find a tape from Flavio explaining himself to his sons and apologizing to them for not being the father he should have been to either of them. They also find out that Eloise is a plane that Flavio built for them since his and Renato's passion was always for planes. They use the plane to fly home to Mexico in time for Renato's wedding, and he finally accepts Asher as a brother.