Cry Macho (2021)

The most amazing thing about Cry Macho is that it exists at all. I thought Clint Eastwood was saying goodbye to the camera with the excellent Gran Torino. Yet here he is, thirteen years later, with another movie. In the interim Clint appeared in Trouble with the Curve and The Mule.

Cry Macho is based on a seventies novel that had been in development as a movie numerous times in the past. Clint finally brought the project to fruition.

I don't think anyone will vote for Cry Macho as the best film Eastwood ever directed and starred in. Not with Unforgiven, White Hunter, Black Heart, and Million Dollar Baby on his resume. However, it is a really good movie. The cinematography is stunning, and Clint is as watchable at ninety-one as he has ever been.

His choices as a director have been extraordinarily shrewd. Clint Eastwood has walked a line between arty productions and crowd-pleasers without missing a step along the way. I can't call them all absolute winners, but I also can't say he has ever directed a truly bad picture. He even helped usher in the slasher era with his debut, Play Misty For Me.

Cry Macho is the kind of movie that makes critics irritated. It isn't really an action movie or a drama. The pace is deliberate rather than accelerated and it doesn't follow the cliches. The most ridiculous complaint I have seen is when some clod of a review says Cry Macho suffers from its lack of relentlessness! I hope that guy never tries to watch a Goddard movie.

The story deals with Clint as an ex rodeo star who has suffered devastating losses in his life. His past is littered with substance abuse and bad behavior. When an old boss, played by Dwight Yoakam, calls in a favor, Clint can't refuse. He has to drive to Mexico and retrieve the boss's son, who is living in the streets to escape his cold, uncaring mother. Finding the boy without a lot of trouble, the old man convinces him to come to his father's ranch in Texas. Simple enough, but problems plague the pair along the way.

Those are the bones of the plot, but Cry Macho is more concerned with notions of what constitutes a good person. When faced with desperate odds both Clint and the boy must choose between what they perceive to be right or wrong. There never seems to be any clear black or white answers to the questions.

I liked Cry Macho a lot. I thought the whole thing worked well, with the minor exception of Eduardo Minett, who played the boy. Neither me or the friend I watched the movie with quite bought the emotional resonance he brought to the character. I usually champion youthful actors, but this one felt off.

This has to be the end for Clint, right? It was kind of hard watching him hobble through the scenes of Cry Macho. He still pulled it off. My god, who else could still be going so strong at ninety-one years old? I guess the tough guy macho act of his isn't all Hollywood ballyhoo.

Written by Mark Sieber