Cinematic Releases: Cry Macho (2021) - Reviewed

Courtesy of Warner Brothers Pictures

Legendary Hollywood actor/writer/director Clint Eastwood has maintained a steady creative pace and enjoyed a level of director clout not seen since the heyday of Stanley Kubrick or more recently Quentin Tarantino or Christopher Nolan.  A mainstream master who has honed his craft to such a precise degree from top to bottom you know the kind of film you’re settling into, Eastwood has achieved such creative autonomy he’s been able to crank out picture after picture almost annually.  At the ripe old age of 91, COVID-19 or not, the screen icon in his forty-second feature film as a director has generated both a long-gestating big screen adaptation of The Rainmaker novelist N. Richard Nash’s 1975 neo-western book Cry Macho as well as offering up Eastwood’s own self-reflexive career summation thematically as well as personally.
 
Originally written as a screenplay under the title Macho until failures to sell it forced the writer to revise the work as a novel retitled Cry Macho, the film follows Texas rodeo star Mike Milo (Clint Eastwood) whose career is cut short by a near fatal back injury during horseback riding.  Wiling the time away breeding and training horses before losing his job in 1979 from his former boss Howard Polk (Dwight Yoakam), he is summoned by Polk to travel to Mexico in the hopes of retrieving his son Rafael “Rafo” Polk (Eduardo Minett) from the clutches of his abusive nymphomaniac mother Leta (Fernanda Urrejola).  Upon arrival in Mexico, Mike learns Rafael has fled to the streets and turned to a life of crime involving cockfights with a rooster named Macho.

Courtesy of Warner Brothers Pictures

 
Similar to the recently re-released 1975 Roy Rogers contemporary western Mackintosh and T.J. as a tale of an elder cowboy taking a juvenile delinquent character under his wing also functioning as a career summation for the main star, Cry Macho in Eastwood’s hands plays sort of like a pastiche of his prior stronger works.  Simultaneously a straight laced adaptation of the novel and the auteur’s long hard look into mirror, the film feels somewhere between the hard barren west seen in Unforgiven with the surrogate grandfather story threads of Gran Torino running through it.  Compared to the much more aggressive and uncompromising The Mule, however, Cry Macho which may or may not shape up to be Eastwood’s final film represents something of a night off for the actor-director.
 
Eastwood at 91 still has it and hasn’t lost his edge though the relaxed pacing and narrative design of Cry Macho presents the screen icon as a tired elder who just wants to hang his hat up, find a woman and live his remaining years in peace.  The results overall are still representative of Eastwood’s direct, unpretentious visual palette lensed beautifully by Guardians of the Galaxy cinematographer Ben Davis with a soft acoustic score by Moana composer Mark Mancina.  In the time honored tradition of Eastwood, the director makes sure you get absolutely everything the first time around with little room for revisits, which is simultaneously Eastwood’s trademark and downfall.

Courtesy of Warner Brothers Pictures

 
Considering what Eastwood has still managed to churn out in recent years one can’t help but feel frustrated what might be his final hour is just kind of an enjoyable but forgettable promenade, but nevertheless fans will still come away entertained by the screen legend doing his thing.  For a career as checkered and illustrious as Eastwood’s, Cry Macho runs the risk of becoming a nice yawn though at 91 it is remarkable the man still can mount and carry a major feature film completely on his terms.  Cry Macho won’t offer anything new fans of the acting-directing legend haven’t already digested many times over before but it is nevertheless good to still see him on the silver screen.

--Andrew Kotwicki