Cry Macho Is Pure Clint Eastwood—and That's Mostly a Good Thing

To criticize Cry Macho—Clint Eastwood’s 39th or 40th movie as a director, depending on how you’re counting—is like picking on a cave painting because a buffalo’s legs aren’t portrayed realistically, to decry today’s sunset because yesterday’s was redder, to announce loudly that water just isn’t wet enough. The picture is so purely Eastwood—with all the good and bad that implies—it’s as if it had been drawn from his veins. Eastwood, 91, also stars, playing a seen-it-all rodeo rider and horse trainer, Mike Milo, who forges an unlikely friendship with a 13-year-old kid, Rafo (Eduardo Minett), teaching him a few lessons about masculinity along the way. (Hint: Being a man is not about being macho.)The story is almost embarrassingly simple. But the picture slides by pleasantly enough like a stream in a Budd Boetticher movie, a calm place to take off your boots and set a spell as you reflect on the true meaning of manhood, the necessity of overcoming hidden heartache and the pleasures of finally, in your sunset years, succumbing to the love of a good woman. The plot, set in 1979, goes something like this: Mike’s old boss, rancher and rodeo owner Howard (Dwight Yoakam, always a welcome presence), is concerned that his son, Rafo—a boy he’s never really known, the result of a one-night stand—is being abused. He sends Mike to Mexico City, where Rafo lives with his mother; his instructions are to retrieve the boy, luring him with promises of his own horse and other fun stuff. A fistful of dollars in his pocket, Mike—who once had a family himself, now long gone—heads across the border. Rafo’s mother, Leta (Fernanda Urrejola), is a rich sex nymphomaniac who lives in a lavish house. (You can’t make this stuff up.) She tells Mike her son is no good—he’s a thief, and spends his nights at the cockfights—before appearing in a silky boudoir outfit, the better to lure Mike into her bed. (Somehow, you knew this was coming.)Clint Eastwood, Eduardo Minett and rooster. Claire Folger Copyright: © 2021 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved. Stalwart Mike resists. Besides, he’s already located Rafo—and met the boy’s prize rooster, a flinty, handsome creature named Macho—and senses that the kid isn’t as tough as he thinks he is. The two set off on a desert odyssey that involves stolen vehicles, some lessons in training wild horses, and pleasant days and evenings spent in a café owned by a kind, observant, gorgeous middle-aged widow named Marta (Natalia Traven). The sparks between Mike and Marta fly, or at least skitter toward one another with resolute, shuffleboard-style jauntiness. Read more reviews by Stephanie ZacharekShot by Ben Davis, Cry Macho has a handsome, muted sheen: Its vistas of dusty purple clouds and ochre desert plains evoke warm winds and the slow passage of time. The material itself—written by Nick Schenck and N.


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