Cry Macho
Warner BrosClint Eastwood's latest forway behind and in front of the camera at the tender but inspirational age of 91 in Cry Macho is a commendable last rodeo, but one that is filled far too frequently with Eastwood colloquial that feels both out of place and narratively weak.
Almost every inch and frame of Cry Macho feels in connective tissue with everything Eastwood has comes to represent and evoke. If it is the sentiments of the old meeting the new, a frantically placed world, and an ever-evolving dynamic between person to person, Cry Macho has it. Maybe too much so, in fact. Granted, the dynamic between Eastwood and the burden he has to bare in this feature with character Rafo (Eduardo Minett) offers enough immersive and emotive care to delve into this feature on a personal note but, alas, Minett is not quite up to it yet with his ability in this specific presentation, specifically concerning being natural and charismatic. It is nowhere near a negative nor a detriment to the overall proceedings, but the lack of maturity and depth is clearly on show. That being said, when the emotive pass comes, Minett does a decent enough job of projecting such an emotional stance.
It is that very emotive stance that sadly undermines the piece overall. Minett's character is linked to his absentee father (Yoakam), but such a narrative is almost pushed aside as the third party of sorts, and with the dialogue is given to Yoakam being so flat and uninspired, the emotive core is never set. Much of that emotional core is left for Eastwood himself as Mike Milo to develop and ride the weight, and saying it is damp would be an understatement. It is not a topic on ageism, but a 91-year-old man being romantically involved with not one but two women at least three times younger than the legendary actor does little to cause an 'emotive' strength of the film.
The first sequence alone is almost mortifying to watch, but the latter does so little and attempts to be the crux of the heart of the feature. Feature’s writer Nick Schenk does little in crafting, giving false warmth and hope to a character that is not convincing. Quite frankly, that emotive thread is just one issue that the narrative feels underwhelming in, with the narrative itself feeling not only repetitive but gravely elongated for a feature just over one hundred minutes in length. Sequences repeat and thematically rinse each other in almost oblivion, to a point in which this feature becomes tiresome and monotonous.
The colour-grading and cinematography are equally as poor from Ben Davis, who – presumably in conduct with Eastwood – washes all sense of colour out of the frame. Setting much of the story in Mexico feels like a redundant and lifeless ideal not to inject life and colour into proceedings, especially when the feature is almost lifeless to begin with. That being said, Cry Macho is compelling enough with a charismatic performance from its lead actor Clint Eastwood, who saves this feature from oblivion. His back and forth and no-holds-barred approach is immersive to a degree, but it feels as it never takes an evolution in its thematic inclusion.
Cry Macho should be a walk in the park for Eastwood with the rhyme and rhythm thematically and emotively consistent with the director's cinematic corpus, but nevertheless, it is an emotionally void and often drained looking feature with little heart and soul. An attribute of which could be settled if Eastwood was perhaps taken out of the directors' chair but an element that is only best thought about in hindsight.
