¿Acabamos de convertirnos en mejores amigos?

Despite what the headline above looks like, this will not be my first post written entirely in Spanish. I am wicked quick with https://translate.google.com/, but my Spanish is pretty terrible. The sentence above translates to "Did we just become best friends?", which is a memorable quote from the movie Step Brothers, which relates a lot to what we will be talking about in this post.

Today I wish to talk about a movie that I recently watched called Half Brothers. This film came out of nowhere for me. I was searching for something to stream with my parents while my brother is in town visiting for the holidays. We hadn't all watched a movie together in ages, so it needed to be a good one. We started Shang-Chi, but I could tell right away that they were pissed about the beginning being in Chinese and having to read subtitles. Plus we were watching it on some free streaming website, so the picture wasn't the greatest. We turned it off pretty much immediately.

We spent a few minutes searching through various apps and eventually landed on Half Brothers. At first glance, I assumed it was going to be funny and a knock-off version of Step Brothers. Lucky for us, it wasn't just that and had a personality all of its own. Yes, indeed it did provide plenty of laughter.

Half Brothers is a high-quality film starring Spanish-speaking actors Luis Gerardo Méndez/Renato and Connor Del Rio/Asher. It does a wonderful job of showing that Mexico is so much more than most Americans imagine it to be. The film frequently makes the joke about how people in the USA only think of Mexico as the place to go ziplining. It's pretty hilarious, but also eye-opening for somebody like me to see. I've never been to Mexico and can't say much about the place besides what I've seen online and in movies & tv. I don't consider myself close-minded by any means, but I know that I must have at least somewhat of a blurred vision in regards to what Mexico is actually like.

Despite taking multiple years of Spanish in middle and high school, I'm like most Americans and only speak English. I've always admired people who are able to speak multiple languages. Especially when they speak English to me and I can't even notice that it is not their first language. I am lucky that so many people are willing to learn English just to communicate with me and most other people residing in the USA.

I needed to see Half Brothers. It alerted me to the fact that Mexico is a great place with plenty of amazing people. I already assumed it was probably awesome down there, but this movie showed me a lot of things that I hadn't pictured before. Plus the story is on point and filled with humorous instances.

I won't tell too much, but here are the basics of what is going on in this film. Renato's father was forced to travel to the USA when the Mexican peso crisis hit in 1994. He was forced to leave his beloved family behind to be able to provide for them. He never came back home and Renato eventually finds out that he has a half-brother named Asher. I'll let you imagine all of the craziness that comes from that. It would probably be best for you to just go ahead and watch the movie to see for yourself.

This film is not only hilarious but also heart-warming. By the end of the film, it gets pretty deep and refuses to let you leave laughing about Mexico. Half Brothers does an excellent job of bridging the gap between the USA and Mexico. I never thought bad of Mexico as many do, but now I think even better of the beautiful country. I hope to visit one day.

I am trying to get better at not spoiling movies when I write about them. The only thing I can think of to do is just talk about how the film impacted me and my honest opinion of whether or not it is worth watching. I 100% think that Half Brothers is worth your time. You will have to read some subtitles here and there if you aren't fluent in both Spanish and English, but it is nothing major. Most of this film is in English and it feels like it came straight out of Hollywood. Trust me when I say you are going to love Asher and his pet goat!

My NFTs: @daltono/nfts