‘RAYMOND & Ray’ is a dysfunctional family drama written and directed by Rodrigo Garcia (“Albert Knobbs” with Glenn Close), the son of famous Colombian author Gabriel Garcia Marquez (“100 Years of Solitude”.) It’s showing on Apple TV and it caught our attention as it stars two good actors, Ewan McGregor and Ethan Hunt.

They play half brothers, same dad but different moms. The film starts with Raymond (Ewan) driving to the remote house of his brother Ray (Ethan), who he has not seen for five years. Ewan says their dad, Ben Harris, has died and his last wish is for his sons to attend his funeral.

Ethan is not keen on going and starts badmouthing their late father, but eventually agrees to attend it to drive for Ewan who has no license due to a DUI offense. As they drive to the cemetery, we learn that their dad is a serial womanizer and was cruel to both of them. Ethan calls their dad a son of a bitch.

They both have traumatic childhood experiences and because of their serious daddy issues, they have a problematic adult life. Ewan is specially hurt because he learned that their dad had an affair with his own wife and the child he thought is his was actually sired by their father.

He tells Ethan: “I want to be there. I want to know what it looks like to put him in the ground.” Ewan has always failed in his relationships with women, while Ethan has become a drug addict but is now on the mend with the help of the current woman in his life.

At the funeral parlor, they are told that their dad specifically stated that he wanted to be buried by his sons and they’re now supposed to dig up his grave in the cemetery by themselves.

They meet Rev. West (Vondie Curtis Hall), their dad’s pastor who’s supposed to give the last rites. Their anger and hatred for their dad quickly surface, with Ewan getting a gun and shooting his already dead fafher’s coffin. Obviously, they come not to say their last goodbyes but to bid their dad good riddance.

They also meet a Spanish woman, Lucia (Maribel Verdu of “Y Tu Mama Tambien”) who says she’s their dad’s latest lover and they have a son, Simon (Maxim Swinton), who’s about 10 years old.

Then two more guys arrive, fraternal twins Leon (Chris Silcox) and Vincent (Chris Grabher), who are acrobats. So they all take turns in digging their father’s final resting place. Another mourner is Kiera (Sophia Okonedo), who was their dad’s nurse at the hospice where he was confined and died.

Kiera says their dad was in pain and it was music that helped him ease that pain. Ethan is a jazz musician and he is surprised because their dad never supported his music career and once, even got his trumpet to pawn it.

Lucia, in turn, says that their dad was a very good father to Simon and a good partner to her, obviously not the same heartless man that the bitter Ewan and Ethan hate so much.

The characters really have so much potential for meaningful drama, but Garcia’s storytelling is so flawed and he fails to utilize his good actors to get the most of their abilities. Most of the characters are not fully explored and we don’t really get to know them much so we cannot fully empathize with them.

The movie just coasts along with some humor injected here and there, and occasional dramatic revelation, but without any real earth-shaking moments to give more depth to the characters. The fraternal twins are so underutilized you don’t even get to feel that they’re also long lost half-brothers of Ewan and Ethan.

There’s also not much rapport between Ewan and Ethan as the estranged brothers. Maybe it’s because their characters are not really that well written and also, they got very little help from their director.

Garcia seems to be going for a tragi-comic tone tied with misgivings and forgiveness in a family, but he just fails to make it work. Maybe he wants it to be a realistic slice of life that shows how quirky and unpredictable life can be.

However, the movie’s jarring shifts in tone from forced comedy to trying hard drama make the narrative so erratic and nothing in it rings true. It has an interesting concept at its core, but at times, the movie feels more like it’s just on auto-pilot.