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Eastwood’s ‘Cry Macho’ a spare, meandering mixed-bag

by TYLER WILSON/Coeur Voice contributor
| September 22, 2021 1:00 AM

At age 91, Clint Eastwood remains a magnetic screen presence. The grit in his voice endures, leaving an audience to hang on every word, even when the word lacks significance on its own.

Serving as director, producer and star of the neo-Western “Cry Macho,” Eastwood provides memorable imagery both in front of and behind the camera. Unfortunately, the film stumbles through numerous, inconsistent story detours, and few of those sideroads amount to any dramatic heft.

Based on the 1975 novel by N. Richard Nash, “Cry Macho” stars Eastwood as Mike Milo, a long-retired rodeo star with both physical and emotional trauma weighing on his old soul. It’s 1979, and Mike’s old boss (Dwight Yoakam) needs an able body to track down his 13-year-old son in Mexico. Mike reluctantly accepts the job, but getting the lad means butting heads with the boy’s rich and dangerous mother (Fernanda Urrejola) and her various henchmen.

Mike finds the boy, Rafo (Eduardo Minett), of course, but getting out of Mexico will be more complicated than expected. So Mike and Rafo set off on an extended road adventure, stopping at seemingly every town in order to toil in unnecessary complications. Just fill up the gas tank and keep moving, guys.

Eastwood, well-known in the industry as a director who doesn’t waste time or money on excessive shooting schedules or allowing actors too many takes, might have served “Cry Macho” better by honing a better relationship between the two central characters here. Much of young Minett’s performance feels stilted and artificial, and the long conversations between Mike and Rafo lack a compelling spark. The actors come close to defining a believable relationship with a pivotal moment near the end of the movie only to have the scene hilariously interrupted by a sudden vehicular assault.

Mike and Rafo hang out in small Mexican towns for extended periods, with Mike also pursuing an unconvincing romance with a diner owner (Natalina Traven). Even with the film’s surface-level threat of henchmen hiding around every corner, these subplots do little to serve the film’s undercooked thematic ideas.

By the way, Rafo owns a rooster named Macho, and the boy often brags about its fearlessness in the cockfighting ring. What it means to “be macho” is very much on the film’s mind, but Eastwood, alongside screenwriters Nash and Nick Schenk, struggle to find much resonance in exploring that idea.

With Eastwood wearing a cowboy hat, wandering and driving through the vast, vacant desert for long stretches, “Cry Macho” at least delivers the visual elements and overall vibe of a good Western. It’s comfortable, in part because those particular elements will never not be watchable. Eastwood understands the power of that frame, even if the movie lacks the substance to keep it from eventually turning to dust.

“Cry Macho” is now playing in theaters and streaming on HBO Max.

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Tyler Wilson has been writing about movies for Inland Northwest publications since 2000, including a regular column in The Press since 2006. He can be reached at twilson@cdapress.com.