Cry Macho
Mike Milo, a one-time rodeo star and washed-up horse breeder, takes a job from an ex-boss to bring the man's young son home from Mexico.
- Released: 2021-09-16
- Runtime: 104 minutes
- Genre: Drama, Western
- Stars: Clint Eastwood, Eduardo Minett, Natalia Traven, Dwight Yoakam, Fernanda Urrejola, Horacio García Rojas, Marco Rodríguez, Paul Alayo, Brytnee Ratledge, Amber Lynn Ashley, Alexandra Ruddy, Sebestien Soliz, Daniel V. Graulau, Abiah Martinez, Ramona Thornton, Elida Munoz, Cesia Isabel Rosales, Jorge-Luis Pallo, Ana Rey, Rocko Reyes, Ruben Barela, Gianni Calchetti, Rob Estrada, Darlene Kellum, Fausto Olmos Rentería, Ivan Hernandez
- Director: Clint Eastwood
Comments
- njdevils-75205 - 29 December 2022
Great
More of an Eastwood text than any form of commercial movie. Even by his late standards, the extense Cry Macho acts like usual movie expectations is beside the point is impressive. Indeed, it is a movie predicted in strip down a certain allure of images. When it is was first announced, Twitter was full of people question the wisdom of the plot of sending a 90-year-old for a kidnapping mission and yes in practical terms that is absurd, but the movie makes clear from the beginning he is sent there because he is Clint Eastwood, the ideal image of American cowboy, that is his value for the mission, an image. The star is the movie object, his iconic weight, his aging slow body. Cry Macho has the suggestion of a neo western, a later day action movie, but it is very much not interested in any of it, it is true that Eastwood gets to throw a punch, but the three times the movie script suggest action mode, he remains a bemused spectator with the kid's wits and the rooster's will doing the actual heavy lifting. If it is a neowestern it is very much of the Stars in My Crown variety. An idea of community is there, but it is mostly a solo, he doesn't really pretend to be co-starring with the kid much or with Yoakam or anyone else, only Natalia Traven Mexican widow is allowed anything close to share scenes with him and even her is more a symbol of earthly existence to be yearned. Eastwood can get rid of many things, but for all his honesty, he is also like plenty of stars still taken with a certain narcissism, even if in his case it often involves exposing his own limits. The Mexican setting exist in rather symbolic terms, a suspended place, valued for its bluntness, no American subterfuge needed, where one can just stop pretending and pretty much call a rooster Macho, it is a gringo idea of a place for sure, but perfect for the strip down approach that Cry Macho is going for. Eastwood has done movies like Cry Macho before (hell, he was doing then in Honkytonk Man 39 years ago), but never this unadorned. In some ways, it does form a trypitch with Gran Torino and The Mule (not coincidentally he brought in Nick Schenk, who wrote those two, to polish Nash's 1980's script). If the former lay to rest Eastwood as an icon and the later offered Eastwood the man an opportunity to fictional confess his own sins and failures, this one is just sort of a final parting wisdom, about things that matter beyond that idealized image the star has always been clouded with. At some point asked to help an aging dog his character complains that he can't treat old, but the movie itself treats aging as a gift. Its heart is in the long scenes of low down, particular when Eastwood and the kid hide in Traven's community, it is very earthy but not quite an idyl, there's too much tension and lies involved, but an opportunity to filmmaker to partake to his audience more than drama that the more essential things, even the more essential things in movies themselves, exist beyond the more predetermined ones. Cry Macho is a movie about existing beyond Hollywood images, it is very much an example of doing exactly that, but it pretty much need Clint Eastwood, Hollywood superstar of over 50 years and all the associations he brings with him, to make it work, it is a contradiction neither Eastwood the filmmaker, nor me can quite solve. - OMTR - 20 September 2022
Heaven Is a Place on Earth
Clint Eastwood adds yet another sensitive work to his rich filmography, which takes the time to develop a beautiful relationship between Mike, a 91-year-old cowboy battered by life, and Rafo, a 13-year-old Mexican-American teenager.
Rafo is the son of Mike's employer, who asks him to pick up his boy from his mother's place in Mexico City.
On their way back, they have a date with fate when they are forced to stay two weeks in a small village lost in the Mexican countryside, where they discover a paradise on earth based on the simple and true values of life: Gentleness, Humility, Kindness and Love, of course.
Chased by a mobster in the pay of Rafo's mother, Mike and Rafo must abruptly put an end to their idyll. But, in the end, Mike will complete his mission and say goodbye to Rafo at the US-Mexico border, where his father is waiting for him, before returning to sweet Marta who knows how good he is, and who will wrap him in sweetness and love for the rest of his life.
