January 24, 2025
by Carla Hay

Directed by Frank Perozo
Spanish with subtitles
Culture Representation: Taking place in the Dominican Republic, the comedy film “El Heredero” features an all-Latin cast of characters representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: Two brothers, who own a farm and are heavily in debt, scheme up ways to pay off their debt, including trying to get their share of a $2 million inheritance that their deceased brother left to his American son.
Culture Audience: “El Heredero” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and comedies about family greed.

There’s a lot of predictable and broad comedy in “El Heredero,” but the engaging performances by the cast members make this movie watchable. The family members hoping an inheritance will get them out of debt are shown going to cringeworthy extremes. The movie is nearly ruined by an ending that wraps up in a quick and ridiculous way that can only be excused because “El Heredero” is clear from the beginning that it’s an absurd comedy.
Directed by Frank Perozo, “El Heredero” (which means “the heir” in Spanish) was written by Miguel Alcantara and Kendy Yanoreth. The movie takes place in an unnamed city in the Dominican Republic, where “El Heredero” was filmed on location. The family at the center of the story owns a farm, where their main source of income is from the chickens that are raised on the farm.
“El Heredero” is one of several movies helmed by director/actor Perozo and co-starring Raymond Pozo and Miguel Céspedes. These includes 2017’s “Colao” (which was Perzo’s feature-film directorial debut), 2018’s “Qué León,” 2019’s “Que Leones,” 2021’s “La Vida de Los Reyes” and 2023’s “Colao 2.” Perozo is also a director of the TV series “Líos de Familia,” also co-starring Pozo and Céspedes.
In “El Heredero,” middle-aged brothers Juanito Rivera (played by Pozo) and Jauncho Rivera (played by Céspedes) own their family farm and have run into financial problems. Juanito is the more impulsive and talkative brother. Juancho is a little more reserved and willing to go along with Juanito’s wild ideas.
Out of desperation, the brothers borrowed money from a corrupt and rich businessman named Otto Sanchez (played by Perozo), who charges them a very high interest rate, like a loan shark. It soon comes time to pay back the loan to Otto, but Juanito and Juancho don’t have the money. They decide to sell a small restaurant they own in order to pay off the debt. The brothers want Otto to be the buyer of the restaurant.
Juanito is divorced and has a daughter named Johana (played by Rosmery Herrand), who is in her 20s and who lives in another household. Juancho is a widower with no children. Juanito and Juancho have another brother named Juan Manuel, whom they have not seen and spoken to in years.
It’s explained in the movie that when they were young men, Juan Manuel abruptly left the Dominican Republic and moved to United States as an undocumented immigrant. Juan Manuel’s hasty departure was because Juanito and Juancho chased Juan Manuel out of their home after they saw Juan Manuel physically asaulting their mother. After moving to the United States, Juan Manuel cut off contact with his family in the Dominican Republic.
Juanito and Juancho work on their farm with a family friend named Yesenia Carrasco (played by Caroline Aquino), whom they treat like a younger sister. Yesenia is so close to the brothers, they often call her “sister,” even though she’s not biologically related to them. Yesenia is confident and attractive, but she is loyal to a fault to Juanito and Juancho. Viewers of “El Heredero” will see how Yesenia is willing to compromise herself because of this blind loyalty.
Meanwhile, in the United States, a U.S. Marines soldier named John Rivera, nicknamed Juan (played by Sawandi Wilson), finds out that the father he barely knew has died in Boston. John’s father was Juan Manuel. John (who speaks English and Spanish) also finds out that he has inherited $2 million as Juan Manual’s only heir.
Juanito and Juancho are in the office of their family attorney Bolivar Santero (played by Marko) when they find out that Juan Manuel died. Juanito and Juancho also find out that Juan Manuel left a $2 million inheritance to John. Juanito and Juancho immediately try to find a way to lure John (whom they’ve never met) to the Dominican Republic, with the hope that John will give some of his inheritance money to Juanito and Juancho, so that the brothers can get out of debt.
In the meantime, Juanito and Juancho know that Otto is very attracted to Yesenia, so Juanito and Juancho convince Yesenia to go out on a date with Otto. Part of the plan is for Yesenia to persuade Otto to sign a contract to accept the restaurant as payment for the debt. However, Yesenia is repulsed by Otto and doesn’t want to date him anymore.
It’s around this time that John is contacted by the family and invited to the Dominican Republic, where John has been asked to bring some of Juan Manuel’s ashes. Before he leaves for the trip, John tells a military friend that he was warned about his unknown relatives in the Dominican Republic. Because John doesn’t know these Dominican relatives at all, John describes them as his “alleged family” to his friend.
As already shown in the trailer for “El Heredero,” John arrives in the Dominican Republic, goes to the family farm, and immediately has a shotgun pulled on him by Yesenia, who thinks he’s a trespasser. You know where this is going, of course. After this uncomfortable “meet cute” moment, an attraction develops between Yesenia and John, who plans to stay in the Dominican Republic for nine days.
Meanwhile, Otto sends some of his henchmen—led by a thug named Barrabas (played by Carlos Montesquieu)—to threaten Juanito, Juancho and Yesenia with guns. Juanito and Juancho become even more desperate to get money, but they don’t know if it would be better to go with the scheme to persuade John to give them some of his inheritance money, or the proposal for Otto to take the restaurant. Juanito and Juancho decide to work both plans at the same time, with Yesenia caught in the middle.
Otto is running for mayor of the city where they all live. He thinks if he and Yesenia were a couple, it would help his chances of winning the election. But because Yesenia and John have a blossoming romance, Otto gets very jealous and possessive. Much of the hijinks in “El Heredero” have to do with how Yesenia handles this love triangle. The family’s attorney Bolivar thinks Yesenia could be the one to persuade John to share the inheritance.
During all of this turmoil, Johana has come to visit, but Johana is a character who is somewhat unnecessary to the plot. The movie also a minor subplot about the brothers’ neighbor friend Elena (played by Carolina Rivas), who’s about the same age as the brothers and who is friendly with Yesenia. Elena has a crush on Juancho, who doesn’t pick up on her hints that she wants be more than friends with him.
“El Heredero” has some amusing moments, but the way that the brothers want Yesenia to be sexual bait for Otto is sleazy and isn’t fun to watch. Yesenia reluctantly goes along with “tempting” Otto without actually having sex with him. Yesenia ultimately does so of her own free will, even though she’s pressured into doing it by Juanito and Juancho. Yesenia keeps her agenda about Otto a secret from John. Predictably, this secrecy leads to all sorts of love triangle confusion and conflicts.
The movie’s love triangle storyline could’ve been written better without making it so that Yesenia is being used as a sexual pawn. “El Heredero” tries hard to redeem itself with a completely rushed ending that crams in too many things at once to resolve certain issues. Despite these noticeable flaws, “El Heredero” shouldn’t be taken too seriously because it presents an almost cartoonish version of what could happen when people make certain decisions that cause more problems in their lives.
Spanglish Movies released “El Heredero” in select U.S. cinemas on January 17, 2025. The movie was released in the Dominican Republic on December 5, 2024.