Clint Eastwood's 'Cry Macho' Is a Kinder, Gentler Cowboy Movie
An ex-rodeo star, a rowdy teenager, and a wild rooster walk into a bar...
"Cowboys always cook," notes Clint Eastwood's ex-rodeo star in the languid second half of his new film, the rambling road drama Cry Macho. "It's kinda our deal." The specific delivery of the last part of the line might feel vaguely anachronistic for Eastwood's character, Texas ranch hand Mike Milo, to say in the film's version of 1979, but the out-of-time feeling only adds to the movie's peculiarly pleasing dreamlike spell. And Mike is right: Whether they're chasing bandits or herding cattle, cowboys always cook. After all, you've gotta have something to eat when you travel, one of the many lessons Cry Macho is more than happy to impart to you with a dusty pat on the back.
If this sounds like a relatively minor observation, well, Cry Macho often feels like a relatively minor film from a filmmaker who has little left to prove but plenty of talent, craft, and charisma to burn. Compared to some of the 91-year-old icon's other recent ripped-from-the-headlines movies, like 2019's thorny grappling with matters of public perception Richard Jewell or 2016's prickly study of heroism Sully, Cry Macho takes it easy. Even next to 2019's forlorn crime saga The Mule, which also starred Eastwood as an old-timer making peace with his past, this is more of a low-stakes endeavor. Yes, there's a plot about Mike being tasked with finding a young boy (Eduardo Minett) in Mexico and bringing him back to Texas to be with his father (Dwight Yoakam), but Eastwood's camera often drifts from the action to instead luxuriate in the small pleasures: enjoying a meal with a new friend, dancing in a mostly empty room, or cracking jokes about a rooster named Macho.
Macho, named in an aspirational way by his wounded owner, belongs to Rafael, the teenager Mike's assigned to find. When Mike crosses the border into Mexico, it does not take him very long to locate Rafael; he shows up, questions the boy's mother, who tries to sleep with him, and then quickly discovers him at a cockfight. Rafael's mother dismissively describes him as a "monster" and "an animal that lives in the gutter," but it's quickly apparent that Rafael is actually sensitive and thoughtful and simply attempting to make his way in a confusing, cruel world. He's looking for guidance, or, as luck would have it, a cranky grandfather-like figure to teach him how to ride a horse, throw a punch, and pluck bits of dust out of Macho's eye.
Even at his increased age, Eastwood slides right into this reluctant mentor role, which was first offered to him back in 1988, more than 10 years after the publication of N. Richard Nash's original 1975 novel and at a time when the Dirty Harry star was already comfortable playing grizzled. (Apparently, Roy Schnieder, Pierce Bronson, and, perhaps most intriguingly, Arnold Schwarzenegger were all circled for the lead in the project's long journey from page to screen.) Mike, offering the kid a new life in Texas with his father, emerges as a mostly non-violent figure of stability and an occasional fount of rough-hewn wisdom. As you might guess, the tone is often broad, drawing attention to Eastwood's age and playing with his on-screen persona, but the performers find nuance and life in the quiet beats.
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Given the weight of history he carries when he appears in a movie, it can be tough to appreciate just how gifted and sensitive a performer Eastwood remains. He sells the jokes and knows exactly when to turn up the emotion. 1992's Unforgiven was his goodbye to the Western, the blood-strewn genre that made him a star, and Cry Macho, a wry and delicate film that tussles the hair of certain Western conventions, isn't really attempting to make a grand statement or reckon with the past. If anything, it feels like a coda. Still, as a dramatist, Eastwood is drawn to moments of friction: desire, violence, deception, and heartbreak. Though Cry Macho might be the closest thing to a "hangout" movie he's ever made, there's still plenty to chew on. That's kinda his deal.