I have been a fan of Clint Eastwood’s films for awhile, especially the ones that he directs himself. I think that Unforgiven, High Plains Drifter, and the Outlaw Josey Wales are some of the best westerns out there for how much they show how bleak the wild west was. Clint Eastwood’s character is never really show to be the perfect hero, his character can even be such a huge scumbag, but that’s part of what makes his characters interesting.
With Cry Macho and the Mule, Clint Eastwood comes back to both starring and directing in now “neo-westerns”, which is basically movies that act as westerns in the modern day. It is impressive that he is still able to do all this in his 90s and the films are always still well made and look nice. I give all these props to his new movie, but at the same time, there are still some things that make this not hold up to his earlier movies. Unforgiven was a great example of Clint showing how much he has aged through out the years with him still pulling through and also having an all star cast with people like Gene Hackman and Morgan Freeman. But now, he still uses that theme of being out of his prime 30 years after Unforgiven, which now is also just not as effective. The cast in this movie also isn’t that great. Besides Clint, the rest of the cast seems to be not that experienced, so their dramatic performance can come off as awkward. Surprisingly, the rooster “Macho” has the most impressive performance out of everyone. That is definitely a really well trained rooster.
Cry Macho is overall a really well made movie with some things holding it down from being great. I probably wouldn’t recommend it for everyone, as I can see a lot of people being bored of it, but if you’re into Clint Eastwood’s other work, this is still a pretty good one.