Cry Macho (2021)

 Clint Eastwood's latest goodbye picture 'Cry Macho' is based on the 1975 novel of the same name by N. Richard Nash (best known for the Broadway show 'Rainmaker' and it's subsequent movie version, not to be confused with John Grisham's 'The Rainmaker'). This movie was in development hell for decades, Nash who co-adapted the screenplay passed away in 2000, and back in 1988 Eastwood himself had considered directing the thing with Robert Mitchum in what would become his role. Eastwood directs and stars here, and wrote some of the music as well. Now in his 90's Eastwood pairs things back physically a lot, but he's still got it in prescience, delivery, and wonderfully understated direction. 

Retaining roughly the period setting of the novel, here the story takes place in 1979 & 80, and concerns Eastwood as a retired rodeo rider and ranch hand named Mike Milo, who is recruited by his old boss (a mildly greasy Dwight Yoakam) to go down to Mexico to retrieve his 13 year old son. Yoakam can't go to Mexico himself because he's involved in some legal tangles there, but is convinced by people who know his ex wife that the boy is being abused. Milo whose relationship with Yoakam has a frenemy quality, aggress to try as his old boss did help pull him out of an emotional hole following the death of his wife and child in a car accident, seemingly decades ago. 

The movie concerns Milo tracking down and retrieving the boy Rafo (Eduardo Minett) and his efforts to take him to his father. Car difficulties force a weeks prolonged stay in a small Mexican town, which proves the emotional hart of the movie. Milo used to break horses and now he must kind of break Rafo, I didn't think this element of the film entirely worked, Rafo is never really that bad to begin with. 

It is the friendship the two strike up in the town with a middle aged widow and her grandchildren that really elevates this picture, that makes it, everything else feels really standard, stuff we've seen before. But even the repetitive stuff Eastwood sells, while other then the widow (Natalia Traven, whose endearing the moment you see her), the rest of the cast, even the boy, are really only adequate. However the 13 roosters who plays the boys prized fighting cock Macho do fine work. 

Not great drama but finally crafted pulp, I found 'Cry Macho' to be unexpectedly satisfying. ***