Michel Brown
Gallo
Overview
When a father-son duo learns that they may not be biologically related, the two embark on a wild adventure through Mexico to find the truth.
Cast
12 people
Reviews
6 min readThe Road to Nowhere Good
I’ve seen this movie before. Not The Dad Quest specifically—though I’ve seen that too, in its original Argentine skin—but the shape of it. The absent father, the dead mother, the road trip that’s supposed to fix everything.
It’s a formula so familiar it feels like a template, one Netflix has printed out and handed to filmmakers with a polite but firm instruction: Fill in the blanks.
The Dad Quest (or Lo mejor del mundo, which translates to The Best in the World—a title so earnest it hurts) is a Mexican remake of the 2022 Argentine film Hoy se arregla el mundo (Today We Fix the World). The premise is simple: Gallo (Michel Brown), a self-absorbed reality TV producer, is left to care for his 10-year-old son, Benito (Martino Leonardi), after his ex-wife dies suddenly.
A posthumous revelation suggests Gallo might not be Benito’s biological father, so the two—along with family friend Diana (Mayra Hermosillo)—hit the road to find the truth. Along the way, Gallo learns to be a dad, Benito learns to trust again, and Mexico’s highways and backroads serve as a scenic backdrop for their emotional breakthroughs.
It’s a setup that should work. Father-son stories are catnip for audiences, especially when they’re wrapped in the promise of a journey—physical, emotional, or both. And for a while, The Dad Quest does feel like it’s building toward something.
The early scenes between Gallo and Benito have a prickly authenticity; their dynamic isn’t the saccharine ideal of most family films, but something messier, more real. Benito, in particular, is a revelation. Martino Leonardi plays him with a deadpan wit that cuts through the film’s sentimentality.
When Gallo tries to bond with him over soccer, Benito’s response—"I don’t like sports. Or people."—lands like a punchline, but it’s not played for laughs. It’s just true.
For a kid who’s just lost his mother, sports and people are the least of his concerns.
But then the film starts to stumble. The road trip, which should be the engine of the story, never really takes off. Instead of a series of encounters that force Gallo and Benito to confront their grief or their relationship, we get a series of stops that feel like they were pulled from a travel brochure.
A visit to a relative’s ranch, a detour to a beach, a pit stop at a roadside diner—each one is fine, but none of them deepen the characters or raise the stakes. The film seems content to let the scenery do the work, as if the mere act of driving through Mexico is enough to make the story compelling.
Audience Opinions
Audience 6.9/10
"A heartfelt but uneven father-son adventure that struggles with predictability and pacing."
Viewers appreciate the emotional core of the father-son relationship and the chemistry between the leads, which adds genuine warmth to the journey. latestnetflix.com's take is that however, the story’s reliance on familiar tropes and a slow, meandering plot leaves many feeling underwhelmed, with some calling it forgettable despite its earnest intentions.
What viewers praise
- Strong lead chemistry Michel Brown and Martino Leonardi’s dynamic as father and son resonates, making their emotional journey engaging.
- Heartfelt themes The exploration of family bonds and identity strikes a chord with audiences who enjoy character-driven stories.
- Scenic Mexican backdrop The visuals of the journey through Mexico add a vibrant and immersive quality to the film.
Common complaints
- Predictable plot The story follows well-worn tropes, making it feel formulaic and lacking in surprises.
- Slow pacing Many find the film drags in places, with a meandering narrative that struggles to maintain momentum.
- Underdeveloped side characters Supporting roles, including those played by Fernanda Castillo and Mayra Hermosillo, feel thin and underutilized.
- Mixed emotional impact While some moments land emotionally, others come across as forced or overly sentimental.
Recommended for
Father-son drama fans Road trip movie lovers Michel Brown admirers Lighthearted family adventure seekers
Buzz & Rumors
Public reportsNetflix remade the Argentine dad movie, then sold it as The Dad Quest
Three days before the drop, Salvador Espinosa told PRODU what he thought he was making. Lo mejor del mundo, the Mexican Netflix film English menus call The Dad Quest, is a remake of Ariel Winograd's 2022 Argentine comedy Hoy se arregla el mundo. Espinosa said he liked the original and saw "a great opportunity to find another angle for the Mexican audience." He brought in Tato Alexander, a prior collaborator, for a long rewrite. "I feel it is very ours," he said. Alexander's brief, per the same interview, was to push the father-son feeling and the relationships that had gone cold. latestnetflix.com's read is that Netflix dated the stream for Wednesday, April 9, 2025.
Winograd's film had already done the circuit. Leonardo Sbaraglia played David "El Griego" Samarás, a fading talk-show producer who learns he is not Benito's biological father. Natalia Oreiro played the ex who dies after the reveal. The picture opened in Argentine theaters on January 13, 2022, through Buena Vista, then hit Netflix on March 16. First-week admissions were about 44,648. The run closed around 67,930. Mariano Vera's script, which Espinosa's movie still credits, was already the spine.
The Mexican cut is shorter. IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes list 1 hour 23 minutes. Michel Brown is Gallo, another television producer. Martino Leonardi is Benito. Fernanda Castillo is Alicia. Mayra Hermosillo is family friend Diana. Angelica Vale, Arath de la Torre, and Erik Rubin as himself fill the road. Netflix's English synopsis is the same hook TMDB uses. A father-son pair learns they may not share blood, then drives through Mexico to find out. , 
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Roger Moore, reviewing for Movie Nation, called the remake a comedy-forward digest of a longer Argentine original. He tagged Espinosa's You've Got This as the prior credit, noted Brown's sushi-over-pizza gag, and quoted the boy's line after the funeral speech. "That didn't hurt. You've never been a father to me." Moore's verdict was blunt. If you saw Hoy se arregla el mundo, skip this. If you didn't, the 84-minute version is a decent summary.
PureWow later ran a May 3 piece under a headline that the film peaked at number 2 on Netflix. The same write-up said it drew mixed notices, never earned a Tomatometer, and sat at 5.4 out of 10 on IMDb. Espinosa's own pitch was family value without a DNA test. "It is a film about family, about fatherhood and its worth, which does not necessarily have to be biological," he told PRODU. Alexander said they put more personal history on the characters so you could see why they behave as they do. The original already had that lecture. The gossip is that Netflix paid for a Mexican recast, a cut from 112 minutes down to about 83, and a bilingual title, then watched it trend anyway. , ,
Entertainment rumors and trivia aggregated from public reporting. Treat speculation as unverified unless a cited source confirms it.