Cry Macho Review

In the first few scenes, you can easily identify Clint Eastwood's latest film starring and directing effort as "Cry Expo," sloppy engaging the audience with the introduction of who Mike Milo is. Dwight's angry rancher Howard recounts an exhaustive listing of the character's many issues and shortcomings to the man who's been through it every single one of them. This is followed by a slow-motion pan through newspapers and trophies that provide the exact same details, prompting you to think Eastwood may lose his ability to make films. The worries do not ease until the middle of this shaggy dog (shaggy-cockerel?) story in which Cry Macho finally finds its spirit.

The film will please people who love Eastwood who had hoped that his return would be to the Western setting that was his most recognizable, but this film isn't able to deliver the stark, powerful themes of Unforgiven. Also, it's not a lucid dissection of the masculine sexiness that the actor/director used to embody and sometimes still adheres to.

In the process of rewriting the script that's been in limbo for a long time, the prolific filmmaker, who is 91, has created something that's like Gran Torino (and shares screenwriter Nick Schenk). Eastwood's Mike instructs a young man (Eduardo Minett) and finds the possibility of reviving his life in the very location he hopes to find it. All the while proving that he's much more than an average, solitary person. Sadly, the returning writer/director combo also repeats the uncomfortable all-women-love-our-leathery-lead wish-fulfilment of The Mule.

Don't worry about it: the being with this wretched, grumpy man and the teenage who he's assigned to transport isn't wasted and there's a good story to tell. Eastwood and Minett have a chemistry that is easy to understand as well as some other excellent performances. There's a problem when your most memorable character is the bird.