With wrinkles and emotions hidden under the hat, Clint Eastwood crosses the finish line of the 39th direction by telling the story of a cowboy, a boy and a rooster fighter, a feathered fighter in the underground rings of Mexico, the weeping Macho of the title. The age of the director-producer-protagonist is unbelievable: 91 years old. The only thing I can’t cure is old age, says the moved gringo. The slow pace, and Dirty Harry no longer lives here. The themes, on the other hand, are the same as always: the retaliation between old and new, experience (and regrets) against freshness (and desire to change); the legacy to be left to the new generations; the viriloid sense of things to be questioned, where Inspector Callaghan’s hasty code gives way to a melancholy wisdom; the threatened family and excesses of violence; the revenge of the anti-hero on the hostile world.
We are far from Richard Jewell, from the counter-western The ruthless and from the prehistoric Hard time (1978) in which Eastwood was paired with a wise orangutan, but very close to Il Corriere – The Mule. This time Clint is inspired by a screenplay-novel by N. Richard Nash that has filmed a lot on the tables of Hollywood producers and tells a story set in 1979, when the then 40-year-old Eastwood was good and bad times. And he reserves the role of Mike Milo, a great end-of-race rodeo champion and horse breeder that trains and heals.
An ice-eyed (ex) Texan bent over by mistakes and wounds who must do the last favor for his lifelong client, Howard (country singer Dwight Yoakam).
It’s about bringing home the man’s teenage son, Rafael (Eduardo Minett). His father hasn’t seen him for years but believes he is hostage to his always drunk mother, Leta (Fernanda Urrejola), and the mob that surrounds her. Not that he cares much about the boy: if anything, he wants to outsmart the woman and settle certain accounts. Milo’s mission takes a turn for the worse, but Mike takes it personally. Rafo steals money on the street with cockfights: Macho is his champion, as well as his only affection.
The road back obviously full of obstacles, with the boy’s slow recovery and the gangs not letting go. The two learn to respect each other and their journey is comforted by a widow, Marta (Natalia Traven). The man who tames the foals must now tame the young rebel by teaching him to ride his own destiny. The macho in disarmament cries over the time that was, but finds a second youth. A senile, crepuscular, geriatric western, in which you alternately expect Clint to be tough like in Gran Torino or instead take the hearing aid off his ears.
Out of all formal obligations, free to vary and to aim for the essential, Eastwood struggles to give agility to the story, suspended between the training course and the farewell to the myth of the Frontier, anchoring itself to a series of clichés that do not belong to his best cinema, adding sentimental details that are out of tune and limiting himself to a soupy, pseudo-youthful adventure, which winks at young people but especially pleases the elderly fanatics of vintage cinema.
CRY MACHO – BACK HOME by Clint Eastwood
(Usa, 2021, duration 104 ‘)
with Clint Eastwood, Eduardo Minett, Natalia Traven, Dwight Yoakam, Fernanda Urrejola, Horacio Garcia-Rojas
Rating: *** out of 5 (by estimate for Eastwood)
In the halls
December 4th 2021 | 08:02
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