Argentina’s noir “Everybody Has a Plan” is as sludgy as the river delta in which it takes place.
Viggo Mortensen (who grew up partly in Venezuela and Argentina) plays both a well-heeled urban pediatrician and his lowlife brother, a criminal who is owed a large sum from a kidnapping scheme in Argentina’s Tigre Delta, where both boys grew up. Naturally, the sleazy one, who is suffering from terminal cancer, goes to his brother’s home, tells him where the money is and asks to be put out of his misery. And as one does, the doctor cancels his existing life and goes to the delta in the guise of his brother, even hooking up with his twin’s girlfriend (Soledad Villamil).
The ridiculously contrived nature of the plot might be forgivable if the film had any light to shed on the nature of identity or how easy circumstances can drive someone to the dark side, but the film offers no insights on anything. And the slow pace, which apparently is meant to imbue the thin story with brooding significance, instead seems merely punitive.