Cry Macho
Starring Clint Eastwood,Eduardo Minett, Dwight Yaokam
Directed by Clint Eastwood
Rating: **
At 90, Clint Eastwood made that sparkling gem of a film Richard Jewell in which he did not cast himself. It was some sort of a world record. Of course our own Dev Anand directed and acted in Charge Sheet at age 88, just months before his death. But Richard Jewell was not given grace marks by critics for Eastwood’s age . It was a trueblue neo-classic.
Just a year later comes Cry Macho. And I am afraid it is just not a worthy follow up to the near-masterpieces Eastwood has given is all through his 70s and 80s like Mystic River, Blood River , Letters From Jima, Gran Torino and Flag Of Our Fathers.Far from it.
Perhaps now it’s time for Eastwood to quit. Cry Macho is a tired, listless,clichéd made-to-order Eastwood vehicle where he plays a former cowboy of indeterminate age assigned to bring a teenager in Mexico to his father in the US.
Believe me, the summary is much more exciting than the film itself which heaves and lurches through some highly embarrassing high-drama, probably a terrific idea on paper but a terrible travesty in execution and a clumsy attempt to create some kind of magical chemistry between (grand)father-figure Eastwood and the half-orphaned boy. Not really Mr Eastwood’s fault. The teenaged actor playing the boy Rafael whom the spaced-out cowboy is supposed to whisk away across the border, is a lamentably lackluster discovery.
I am sorry to say this but young Eduardo Minett’s cock acts better than him. The film gets its title from the rooster(whom everyone insists on calling cock) whom Rafael insists on taking on the road trip. On the way our cowboy hero takes a break for some romance. Yes Mr Eastwood, age 91, has a charming middle aged love interest Marta played by Natalia Traven.
There is another Mexican actress Fernanda Urrejola cast as Rafael’s sluttish mother. I don’t know if the actress is to blame or is it just the inept writing(I suspect the latter). But Ms Urrejola’s performance is way over-the-top , so shrill she trips down that hysteria hill.
It’s wonderful to see Mexican actors being cast as Mexicans. But in a film where the nonagenarian hero refuses to act his age,the irony of casting credibility does not escape our notice.
Nor does the film’s sluggish pace and clichéd treatment of travel relationships formed between strangers. I am sure N Richard Nash’s novel must have sounded like a tempestuous tearjerker on paper. The film is a storm in a teacup. Not even that. Nothing moves.
Not as embarrassing and incoherent as Dev Anand’s Charge Sheet but nothing to do cartwheels over either.
