Movie Review: 'Cry Macho' Starring Clint Eastwood

Cry Macho’s best asset is that it isn't as completely unwatchable as some of Clint Eastwood’s most recent movies. The Mule was obnoxiously slow and dedicated to polishing Eastwood’s ego while his take on the true life drama of the Paris train incident, 15:17 to Paris, is a shockingly awful movie where Eastwood the director looked nearly as amateur as his cast of non-actors blandly re-enacting their much ballyhooed act of heroism. 15:17 to Paris is awe-inspiringly terrible, especially coming as it does from an Academy Award winning director.

Cry Macho needed only a couple of compelling scenes and a complete lack of characters endlessly tasting samples of Gelato, an actual scene in 15:17 to Paris, I’m not kidding, and not spend too much time polishing the director’s ego to succeed. Cry Macho has three good scenes and narrowly avoids boredom in other scenes to become the first Eastwood feature since Mystic River that I didn’t actively loathe.

Cry Macho stars Clint Eastwood as Mike Milo, a former rodeo superstar, now living out his golden years alone in a big empty house in Texas. Mike has one friend, and they aren’t particularly close. Howard Polk (Dwight Yoakam) hired Mike as a ranch hand after Mike’s career as a rodeo star ended. And it was Howard who picked Mike up off the ground after Mike’s wife and son were killed in a car crash.

Now, Howard needs a favor. Howard’s son is in Mexico with his good-for nothing mother. Howard wants Mike to drive down to Mexico, just outside of Mexico City, and bring back his son, Rafo (Eduardo Minnett). Mike begrudgingly agrees and travels first to see Rafo’s mother, Leta (Fernanda Urrejola). After a bizarre couple of scenes where Leta attempts to seduce Mike and alternately gives up her son and then angrily demands that he stay with her, Mike goes looking for Rafo elsewhere.

What luck, Mike ends up stumbling over Rafo and his rooster, competing in a cockfighting match. The cops arrive and break up the cock fight and Mike eventually has to chase Rafo down elsewhere. After convincing the kid that his father is rich and landowning in Texas, Rafo agrees to go, but only if he can bring his Rooster, Macho. And, of course, here’s where the real story of Cry Macho begins.

Mike and Rafo travel, Mike’s truck gets stolen off the side of the road and the duo end up walking a while before they steal a car and drive off. While avoiding the Mexican Police, the two stop in a small village where there just happens to be a horse farm. Mike, being a longtime ranch hand, manages to help the owner break a horse and the two find work for a little while. They also are welcomed by a kindly restaurant owner, Marta (Natalia Traven), who further helps them avoid the cops and the men sent by Rafo’s mother to bring him home by any means necessary.

This is the best portion of Cry Macho as Eastwood allows Mike and Rafo to linger in this tiny village and become part of the fabric of the small town. You get a sense of a life the two could make here, especially as Mike and Marta spark an immediate attraction. Mike becomes an amateur veterinarian, treating the ailments of local goats and pups, and they have the horse farm where they break mustangs all day and come home to Marta and her granddaughters at night.

I really enjoyed this portion of Cry Macho, it’s by far the strongest and least dull part of Cry Macho. Sadly, this is only about a quarter of the runtime of Cry Macho. The rest of the movie is a rather lumbering and slow walk from Mexico back to Texas with Eastwood decrying the notion of being Macho and trying to teach Rafo what it is to be a man without worrying about machismo and the overrated aspects of manhood. It sounds as if Eastwood is deconstructing masculinity but don’t give Cry Macho too much credit, this is very much a surface level point of view.

Like I said earlier in this review however, Cry Macho does have three good scenes. They all involve Eastwood and Marta and while a 90 year old Eastwood doesn’t quite cut a romantic leading man figure, I was won over by the warmth and natural qualities of Natalia Traven. Traven makes it believable that she would go for a man in his 90s and I liked the wistful way in which Mike looks at Marta, as if he really understands how lucky he is to be around a woman this kind. Eastwood’s eyes light up in these moments and it’s nice to see.

It’s also nice to see Eastwood not being a creep as he was absolutely a creep in The Mule. That film was downright lascivious in having Eastwood as an 80 something sex god that all women want. Ugh! Here, he at least appears to be respectful of Marta, her feelings for Mike don’t feel like the function of a script telling her she has to find this man attractive. This doesn’t mean I can recommend Cry Macho, but it makes the movie tolerable, which is a step up from more recent Eastwood movies.

Cry Macho is in theaters now and available to stream for subscribers to HBO Max.