Clint Eastwood Returns to the Western in Cry Macho

Thanks to everyone who has participated in this discussion so far. Do any of you have any thoughts on why Eastwood seems driven to make the same movies over and over, at least thematically? "Million Dollar Baby," "Gran Torino," and "Trouble with the Curve," the only films he has chosen to act in over the past 17 years, are all family dramas, or surrogate family dramas, and many center around an older man mentoring a younger man or woman as part of the story "Cry Macho" again traverses that same thematic ground, as do earlier films such as "Honkytonk Man" and "A Perfect Wold." Why do people think that is?

I just saw on Twitter that Larry Elder, conservative talk radio host and Republican candidate for governor during California's recall election, received a message of support or call from Clint Eastwood recently. Larry Elder is quite conservative, so it's possible that he has become more conservative in recent years, and that this could explain the trajectory of his movies and their influences.
@Yoda, it's interesting that you thought Eastwood looked older in this film than in his other recent films because I saw the opposite. Did you see "The Mule"? To me, he looked much older in that. So much so that I thought they may have applied some special effects to make Eastwood appear younger than he actually does in real life for this trailer, and potentially, the film as well! He sounded older, but Eastwood has said that for many of his films, that's an affectation for the role. I often find that his voice sounds different, less gruff and less labored in interviews than it does in his movies.

I did not see The Mule, that might explain the discrepancy. I guess in my head he was still the guy in Gran Torino.

Check out the trailer:



Doesn't he look older to you here than he does in "Cry Macho," and this was released in 2018?

If you've never seen it, it'a very entertaining film, with a poignant family subplot centering around the regrets his character has about putting work ahead of family, not prioritizing his wife or children, and realizing that he is at the end of his life and he has limited time left to make things right. It's not one of Eastwood's best movies. The trailer makes the film seem like it would be this dark and gritty crime drama/thriller, similar to Breaking Bad. If were that, I think I would liked it better. It's definitely not that, but I think it's worth watching, and it may even be on HBO Max for you to see for free! It has a particularly good score by Latin jazz musician Arturo Sandoval, and Eastwood gives a good performance. Even at 88, he still has that charm, charisma, and ability to intimidate everyone with his familiar mannerisms that he always did. I think his true motivation for making the film was to quasi-apologize to his daughter for being a bad Dad growing up, but doing it through his character rather than directly, because he chose his actual daughter to play his daughter in the film, despite her never being a particularly prolific actress, and having retired many years ago. Let us know if you watch it, Yoda.

Sounds like the plot of the book Leonardo DiCaprio reads in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

I'm guessing as people get older and facing death, their views may change. That could be the situation with Clint Eastwood. I'm not surprised that his views seem to be right leaning; after all, Clint Eastwood is no sissy.

91 directing and starring in movies still. What an animal. His son Scott looks just like him. I always thought it would be cool if he could find a badass Western and have his son star in it before he called it a career/life. Probably won't happen though. Having said that this looks like a poor man's Gran Trano.

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I saw this opening night in the theater and was very disappointed in it. For me, this is Clint's least entertaining starring vehicle since "The Rookie" or "Pink Cadillac."

While watching the film, I couldn't help thinking that this particular story, which is set in 1979 and 1980, really was a product of its time and should not have been resurrected 40 years later to be made into a film in 2021. I could see why this project never got made before despite many previous attempts.

The story is extremely slow and simple, which may have been characteristic of the 1970's when it was first written, but which are not commonly sought after elements of films today. The story, which could have been a nice thriller if updated for modern times, also completely lacks any kind of dramatic tension. Despite being nominally on the run, I never felt like Mike or Rafo were in any danger from anyone.

In addition to the slow pacing of the film, it was, in my opinion, very badly written and poorly acted. Everything was very predictable, and by choosing mostly unknown actors for the principal roles, Eastwood in my opinion exacerbated the flaws of the poorly written script because the actors chosen, with the possible exception of Eastwood's love interest, played by Natalia Traven (who is 35-40 years younger!), were unable to carry their roles due to a lack of acting talent. There is also little to no character development for most of the characters. I didn't feel invested in any of them.

While I think this was not the main problem with the film, Eastwood, at 90 years of age at the time of filming, was much too old to portray the main character convincingly. I don't know if it was the poorly written script and acting from most of the other characters, or whether Eastwood, at 90, just doesn't have the same acting abilities that he used to, but even his performance had no real energy to it, and was lacking the real charm and charisma that are characteristic of most of his other roles. It seemed to me like he even struggled to say some of his lines in the film. I found this surprising because, although "The Mule is definitely second-tier in his filmography, I found Eastwood's performance in that film to be quite fluid and well done, and that was only three years ago.

I think it has a nice musical score, and some of the landscape shots are quite picturesque, but the movie as a whole was a disappointment on every level. His judgement for the selection of projects seems to be a bit off at this point in his career. Both 15:17 to Paris and this film were just not worthy of being turned into films. The material just isn't there on the page to make a good film.

I really hope he finds another starring vehicle to make before he hangs it up, since this is definitely not a good capper for his six decades plus career as an actor.

To add to our previous conversation topic on neo-westerns, beyond Eastwood wearing clothing characteristic of the West, this also did not feel like a western to me at all. Eastwood was on the horse for like 30 seconds, and there really wasn't a man against nature theme!

Did anyone else see this? What were your thoughts? Happy to discuss.

@AKA23

I posted this on Rate the Last Movie You Saw Thread
and this...

Yes, Citizen rules and I traded some commentary about this film in the "Rate the last movie you saw" thread, starting on page 3227, and a little more on the next page.

I do agree with your review.

Hi Citizen Rules and Gulfport. I read both of your comments in the other thread, but since they were already posted in the other thread, and I didn't want to have two threads discussing the same topic, I chose not to respond to this. I thought Yoda might not like having two threads on this.

I agree with you that the script was weak, Natalia had the best acting, and that Dwight Yaokum and the kid did not do a good job with their roles. I was kind of surprised by Dwight, because I've seen him in other films and TV shows and always came away with feeling like he was a good character actor. That scene in the beginning with all the exposition was really poorly done. To me, that could have been half an hour of film that would have made the movie much more interesting, but they likely didn't do that because of Eastwood's age. The way he injured himself would have necessitated showing him riding and falling from the horse, etc, and I think that was probably something he couldn't safely do at 90 years of age.

I don't think the film was meant to be farcical. That was part of my issue with the movie. The tone of the film didn't seem to fit the subject matter, but I also felt that way with "The Mule," which was a much more entertaining movie, but to me, a missed opportunity. I think a film with a tone similar to "Breaking Bad" would have been a much better approach than what turned out to essentially be a fairly light film, that centered mainly on family drama, and which was only really tangentially about the drug war.

I also felt that it was odd that in "The Mule," unlike many Eastwood characters who do morally questionable things, that there was no real exploration of the devastating impacts that cocaine can have on its users and society, and that the character Eastwood played didn't really seem to wrestle much at all with the moral implications of those choices.

This was also one of my issues with "Cry Macho." SPOILERS FOLLOW

Giving the kid to the father after he knew that the primary motivation for wanting the kid was to use him as a bargaining chip to get more money from the ex-wife is not something that is consistent with what other Eastwood characters he portrayed in the past would have done. Even the antiheroes he played, with rare exception, had a strong moral compass. I kept thinking in the end he would find a way to do what was right for the kid and not hand him over to either one of his parents, and was surprised and disappointed when that didn't happen.

AKA, thanks for the reply, a couple quick follow up thoughts.

I noticed that too, but as much ad cocaine/drugs ruin lives/society I was glad The Mule and Eastwood's character didn't bother to include moralization. I figure we all know drugs are bad and Eastwood's character was just a fictional character so he doesn't have to have any regrets for hauling cocaine to America.

Yup, to me that was a major plot flaw. They should've just dropped the idea that the kid's dad really wanted to use the kid as a bargaining chip with the mother in Mexico. OR...when Clint learned of that he should've been pissed at the kid's dad (his boss) and Clint and the kid should've stayed in Mexico.

Saw this last night. Pretty underwhelming. General thoughts:

1) Eastwood was too old for this. I'm sorry, I know that's blunt, but he is. There's parts in the script where he has to ride a bucking horse or punch a guy and it's just not believable, or even close to it. I'm down for the "old guy's still got something left in the tank based on sheer nerve and ample grit" stuff, but at this point it's asking too much. Maybe it could've worked even in his late 70s, like he was in Gran Torino, but not at 91.

2) Most of the performances are average-to-bad. The kid is giving off major Edward Furlong vibes, and not in the good way. Eastwood's lines are routinely off, simply because of how weak they sound. He's actually at the age where even basic line readings suffer, which is a shame, but I think undeniable. The only moments his performance moved me at all were the tender ones, where he was able to take off his hat and actually emote a little, but even those feel muted and hidden behind the advanced years.

3) Some really terrible writing at points. Almost immediately Dwight Yoakum's character just gives a paragraph of exposition about Mike's history. I almost laughed out loud at how clumsy it was. There are a handful of decent lines, but that's about it, and the bad outnumber the good.

4) Don't worry, I have a compliment! Eastwood is still a very strong visual director. The movie's nice to look at, and occasionally gorgeous. The shot of Mike lying down against the horizon, disappearing into the ground as if to the grave itself, and where his tuft of hair briefly becomes one with the brush, was amazing. Maybe the single-best thing about the entire movie.

I had hoped this would've been a deep, meditative film about the nature of aging masculinity, the things it learns about being "macho" and strong and the changing form that strength takes with experience. The film touches on these things, but never really explores them, and never especially well.

Wasted opportunity.

Yoda pretty much hit on all my points.

Major "meh".

I rarely say this, though I recently did....I wish Clint hadn't made Cry Macho. It seems to be one movie where all us MoFos agree.

Yoda, I agree with most everything that you wrote. As I said, this is one of the few movies that Eastwood has done that I did not even enjoy his performance. But, since his performance was quite good in "The Mule," which was just 3 years ago, I'm not sure that he can't act anymore due to age. Is that what you are saying? Do you think he just doesn't have the ability anymore, even if he had good material?

There are definitely movies like "The Rookie," Pink Cadillac," "Paint your Wagon," "City Heat" and the monkey movies that I really don't have a desire to ever watch again. But, I don't think he's done that many movies that have no redeeming qualities to them. I think his performance is almost always good and entertaining, and so movies that are medicocre otherwise end up still being enjoyable for that reason for us as Eastwood fans. But, for movies in which he is only directing, that hugely entertaining factor of seeing him on screen is absent, so if the material isn't there to make a good movie, there's nothing to compensate for that. That's why I tend to enjoy his director only efforts much less. Movies like Absolute Power and True Crime, for example, are not great films, but I can turn on those movies and enjoy because of his performance, and the touching storyline, for example, even though they could have been executed better.

Another thought-provoking question. I have yet to talk to a single person that thought that this was a good movie, so given that Eastwood is one of the best filmmakers in history, he would also have known that, so why did he make it? Why does he make movies like this and "15:17 to Paris," when it would be obvious to nearly everyone that they wouldn't turn out to be good movies, especially when he is 90+ years old and every movie could be his last?

I think the answer is no more complex than he just enjoys making movies. He's got nothing to prove. He doesn't need the dough. Financing and production are never a problem. And too, he still likes the ladies. That Natalia Traven is one hell of an alluring gal, and pretty to boot. Clint is still a romantic.

Could his judgement be less effective than it has been in the past? Sure. But I wouldn't say that poor judgement is the chief reason for a sub standard picture from him.

I haven't seen The Mule, though even unseen I suppose it's possible the last few years have been particularly rough (and/or the material is more suited to his age). It wouldn't be too weird for someone to decline very rapidly at this age. I'd be interested to hear more though, about how the demands of the two performances compare.

I still think he has something left as a director, regardless.

I guess my low expectations helped me a lot. I enjoyed this for what it was. I just wanted to see Clint again. And be surprised how the man can still even stand let alone direct and act in a film.

There’s no doubt it’s not a great film though. If this was any other than Clint in it, it would’ve been downright awful.

I pretty much agree with every negative point made about this film. I was somehow able to enjoy it (expect for the first third, which I absolutely hated).

I find myself thinking this a lot as I get older. Totally agreeing with criticism but not the overall conclusion.

I've decided it's a sign of immense emotional maturity and wisdom.

Can anyone else help Yoda out here who saw both "The Mule" and "Cry Macho"?

Yoda, in my opinion, the demands of "The Mule" and "Cry Macho" were not radically different. Neither were particularly physically demanding roles, but what stood out for me, as I stated in my original comments, was that I felt like in "The Mule" Clint's performance was very fluid, and I didn't have any concerns about his acting. I was actually impressed, thinking that it was quite remarkable how he still had the same charm and charisma, and he could still pull off a starring role quite well at 88 years old.

In "Cry Macho," that was gone. His performance was kind of halting, as you stated his voice sounded much weaker, and it seemed like his line readings were off. He also seemed to have much more difficulty moving around. In "The Mule," he also looked old and was more frail than earlier in his career, but the performance itself didn't suffer. He just seemed physically older.

In "Cry Macho," not only did he look old and frail, but he also didn't have the same energy to his performance, and the charm and charisma was no longer present. Yoda, are you an Eastwood fan? If you are, you'll know what I mean by his energy, charm and charisma. He always has that twinkle in his eye, his humor and one liners are usually present throughout, and that kind of propulsive energy that is a hallmark of his work as an actor. I felt like all of that was absent in "Cry Macho."