A great director can make a good movie great. A great director can, at best, make a bad movie OK.
Unfortunately, that is the fate of Cry Macho.
This is a very simple tale with a great many plot-holes. Set in 1979, it centres around the story of Mike Milo, a former rodeo star (Clint Eastwood) being sent to retrieve the son of Howard Polk (Dwight Yoakam) from Mexico in order to repay the debt of Polk supporting Milo since his career was ended through injury.
So begins a road trip journey into Mexico the adventures that Milo and Rafo (Eduardo Minet) have trying to drive up from Mexico back to the US. Along the way, meeting and falling for Marta (Natalia Traven).
Just from those few lines, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out how everything plays out.
The ‘Macho’ in the title refers to Rafo’s rooster who is also along for the ride and shows his cock-fighting roots here and there.
I have absolutely no problems with a simple plotline. After all, Chloe Zhau’s Oscar-winning Nomad is very simple at its core. However, the problem with Cry Macho is that the screenplay / script is really bad. It is rammed full of cliche and coincidence to the point of ridicule. Clint does everything he can to save this. His performance, at 91 years old, is stellar as is that of Natalia Traven. However, when you have a script that is so poor, even the best actors delivering those lines utterly fails to mask the cracks with the movie quite simply ending up being dull and predictable. There is heart in this movie in spades, absolutely. This is also conveyed well in the most part by the adult actors. But Eduardo Minet has not yet mastered his craft and just looks like a kid reciting a script.
Allegedly, this is a movie that Clint has been wanting to make for decades. Personally, this surprises me. Passion projects can be wonderful and, when you have the status and background of Clint Eastwood, you’ve earned the right to explore those. This, however, is just not a good story. I would also like to quickly point out that I have NOTHING against age-gap relationships. But Natalia Traven and Fernanda Urrejola’s character as the mother of Rafo, and town whore seemingly, just seem out of touch with a 91-year-old Clint on any romantic level. If this movie had been made 20-30 years ago, those interactions and relationships would have played out in a way more believable way.
There are meant to be limits to what a 91 year old man is capable of. Clint dances a fandango over that concept but I fear this will be his last hurrah, and if it is, I’m left wishing he had not pursued it.
Some tale set in the last days of the old west where a former cowboy is having to adjust to the new world or die would be awesome for him. This is not that. It’s brave from him to try something so emotional rather than an action piece but it quite simply doesn’t work.
