A onetime rodeo star and washed-up horse
breeder, in 1978, takes a job from an ex-boss to bring the man's young son home
and away from his alcoholic mum. Crossing rural
Director: Clint Eastwood
Cast: Clint Eastwood, Dwight Yoakam, Eduardo
Minett, Natalia Traven, Fernanda Urrejola, Horacio Garcia Rojas
Release Date:
Genre: Drama, Thriller, Western
Rated PG-13 for language and thematic
elements.
Runtime: 1h 44min
Review:
Clint Eastwood’s latest film plays like a
swan song of his cinematic persona. Its
ready made to be a moving meditation on his iconic western character in a neo
western send off. Eastwood has shown an
impressive ability to deconstruct the western drama and delve deeper into the
tough guy psyche. Unfortunately, Cry
Macho is a shockingly inert piece of a filmmaking from an acclaimed director
and actor. Eastwood’s film moves at a
molasses pace with very little actually happening in terms of action or
character development. The film clocks
in at an hour and forty four minutes but it feels much longer than that due to
its inability to connect you to these characters. The main issue is that newcomer Eduardo
Minett just isn’t a capable actor at this time. He’s the lynch pin of the
entire film and serves as the primary motivating force for the entire
story. He and Eastwood share little to
no on screen chemistry which hampers the film as their interactions are far
more painful than touching. Eastwood
himself is surprisingly ineffective as a performer in this piece leaving a massive
emotional disconnect for the entire film.
It’s a shame that Cry Macho failed on its main emotional story thread
because the story is so simplistic that it can’t prop up the uninspired
performances.
D
