Cry Macho (2021)

[Mike Blakesley]

Clint Eastwood, at age 91, has become to movie directors what Prince was to music.... which is, he's so legendary now that anything he does is going to get heaps of praise from a lot of critics, whether it's really that good or not, because he's Clint Fucking Eastwood and they're just so in awe that he's still out there gettin' it done, you know?

Which brings us to his latest movie, which I can say, not being a movie critic, is not really that good. I'm sad to report this because I was really hoping it would be tremendous, like Gran Torino or The Mule, but, sorry Clint.....it's just not.

The story is decent enough. A father (Dwight Yoakam) wants to "save" his estranged son, Rafa, who has been whisked off to Mexico by his ex-wife and is being abused and has turned to a life of crime. Getting the kid back to the Texas ranch would be good for him, Dad says. But then it turns out that he has other motives for wanting the kid back. He can't go into Mexico himself for vaguely explained reasons, so he sends Mike Milo (Clint), a retired rodeo star who used to be a horse trainer for Dwight, but who got fired for slacking off on the job a year or so ago. (C'mon, the guy is 91, he can't slack off a little?)

Anyway, Dad says Mike "owes" him for forgiving back rent and other niceties, so Mike agrees to drive into Mexico with nothing but an address and a four-year-old picture of Rafa. When he finds him, he's involved with cock-fighting, which I don't know anything about except that it's illegal as hell. (His rooster is named Macho, hence the movie title) After about 10 seconds of convincing, Rafa agrees to go with Mike back to Texas. The story from there involves the road trip north, with various law enforcement and other bad-guys in pursuit.

The problems with the movie are mainly with the acting, and to a greater extent with the writing. None of the acting is what I would call first-rate; the performances (especially from Dwight Yoakam and Clint Eastwood himself). The performances are pretty wooden and unconvincing, and the pacing is kind of languid.

The writing takes scenes that should have been longer and makes them shorter; and other scenes that should have been quick seem to go on for minutes. For example, at first Rafa's mom tells Mike to "Take him back with you, if you can find him; he's a monster, he's a loser, he's blah blah blah." But then after the kid agrees to go, she turns on a dime and sends a few henchmen chasing our heroes in an effort to not let him go after all. Her change of heart is never really explained.

Speaking of the women in the movie, there are two: The aforementioned Rafa's mom (who along with everything else, tries to take Mike to bed because she's basically a crazy whore) and another lady who helps our heroes out by giving them shelter, and sure enough, she invites Mike into HER bed, because...well, because he's Clint Fucking Eastwood, I guess.

The movie is really more about "what's important in life" than it is about Rafa and his situation. It's about Mike figuring out where his priorities should lie. (They never deal with figuring out how he's going to explain stealing at least three cars in Mexico.)

The movie has a slight twist in its ending, but it's kind of an unsatisfying ending because we're not sure things turned out as they should have for everyone, well except for Clint because he gets laid right after the credits are finished rolling. But I guess if I was a 91-year-old guy directing myself in a movie, that's the way I'd want it to end.

The cinematography is really good, although the movie was shot apparently during the winter in Mexico when all the scenery there is various shades of brown. The sound mix was nice, with a spare jazzy score like you typically find in Clint Eastwood movies these days. If only he had some better writers, this could have been a real good movie. Alas....I hope he does something more worthy of his talents, as I would hate to see this movie be his swan song.

2 out of 5 stars from me.

[Leo Enticknap]

Sorry to hear that. I haven't gotten around to seeing it yet, but have been very impressed by Eastwood's stuff over the last few years, in particular, American Sniper, Sully, and The 15:17 to Paris. Part of their effectiveness, IMHO, are the relatively small budgets, tight shooting schedules, and small scale and focused scripts. Maybe not having an actual, historical event to structure the script for the first time in a while, was part of what flawed this one. The last Eastwood movie I saw that I judged to be more of a miss than a hit was J. Edgar: too big of a budget, Hoover's weirdnesses provided too much low-hanging fruit, and DiCaprio insisted on picking too much of it for background scenes that added little to the whole.

Is 91 the record for directing a mainstream Hollywood feature? Eastwood must be very close to it if not.

[Mitchell Dvoskin]

I watched Cry Macho last weekend (HBO MAX). While far from Clint’s best, it was still entertaining. I agree with Mike’s review above, the film’s flaw was both writing and acting. Further, while I had no real problem with Mr. Eastwood acting, I did not feel he was age appropriate for the character.

Also, aside from Clint’s character stealing cars in Mexico, there was the issue of him kidnapping a child and violating international custody treaties, and according to this film, a Mexican national child can just walk across the unguarded land boarder with no paperwork as long as his American father is there to greet him. Makes me wonder why everyone else needs to cross the Rio Grande and climb a fence. Nothing political intended, just an example of the bad writing.

[Steve Wilson]

If you put this movie on a drive in screen, one sees all the flaws! Especially the 10 minutes which the screen was so dark there was nothing to see! I have played Halloween Kills as well as Venom 2. Both movies have good lighting and lot of talent in a dark environment. Cry Macho was not lighted with any real skill. There is more skill used in the lighting of a 1966 Star Trek TV episode than I see on many of todays movies. You have to have light direction to see! You cannot light everything with candles. "Solo" was also next to the worst movie in my recollection of poor quality lighting

[Kenneth Wuepper]

Ever since "Barry Lindon" the candle lighted scene has become a trick.

Darkness covers a multitude of errors, not withstanding the lack of light for photography.

[Jon Dent]

If you put this movie on a drive in screen, one sees all the flaws! Especially the 10 minutes which the screen was so dark there was nothing to see! I have played Halloween Kills as well as Venom 2. Both movies have good lighting and lot of talent in a dark environment. Cry Macho was not lighted with any real skill. There is more skill used in the lighting of a 1966 Star Trek TV episode than I see on many of todays movies. You have to have light direction to see! You cannot light everything with candles. "Solo" was also next to the worst movie in my recollection of poor quality lighting

I think Clint and his cinematographers just go with natural light whenever possible, whether through preference or Clint's infamously speedy schedule not leaving time for it. "Unforgiven" was incredibly dark in a lot of places as well.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

There have been other recent movies lit dark too. The Tender Bar had parts 20+ seconds long where it was hard to make out anything... I know from Friends that have worked on a few of Eastwood's films that he is a cheap skate and dreads it when a shooting day goes wrong and he gets behind. . But Cry Macho was no where near as dark as The Tender Bar was. The Tender Bar is a much better movie though,. I think these directors think that just because we're shooting digitally now that using ASA 8000 will get us through... And that is for sure NOT TRUE! If you bring up the dark areas you also bring the noise way up. Watched Belfast last night. It was shot digitally, but is done very tastefully in B&W....

[Randy Stankey]

... He can't go into Mexico himself for vaguely explained reasons, so he sends Mike Milo (Clint)...

I know why...

There's a certain person who knew another person who went to Mexico and, one night, came upon two bad guys assaulting a woman in public. This guy stepped in to help but, in the process of saving the woman, one of the two attackers was killed.

It was a clear cut case of Good Samaritan law. Plus, the guy was well known and could wield a certain amount of clout but the Mexican police had to do something. So they came to an agreement. This guy would never come back to Mexico or else face prosecution. In return, the police would put it down to an "Unknown Person."

The right bad guys got caught and dealt with. The woman being assaulted got away relatively unscathed and got to see her attackers face justice. There's no reason why that case file can't find its way to the back of a file cabinet drawer, never to see the light of day, again.

Now... Mind you! This is a story, I just made up, out of the blue, because I thought it was funny!