The first “Western” champion in 29 years

'Cray Macho': Clint Eastwood stumbles back into the saddle

picture

We are approaching the 50th anniversary of the release of Play Misty for Me, the first movie directed by Hollywood legend Clint Eastwood (91 years), as well as the 50th anniversary of the release of Dirty Harry, starring Eastwood and directed by Don Siegel, and the two films released in November and December of 1971, respectively. .

They were not the two films that introduced Eastwood to the public, as the legend was the star of the Dollar Trilogy under the direction of Sergio Leone.

The legend was nameless at the time and his character was named in the trilogy (The Man Without a Name).

In the mid-sixties the trilogy rocked European cinemas, and from there Hollywood woke up and imported the trilogy in 1967, and (The Man Without a Name) became a legend during the next five decades.

Eastwood directed The Outlaw Josey Wales

Pale Rider, Unforgiven, and Million Dollar Baby, the latter two, won Best Picture Oscars in 1992 and 2004.

The man is passionate about his work and makes excellent films, such as: "American Sniper", "Sully", "Richard Joel" and "The Mule", all of which are true stories.

Today, in his ninth decade, the man is still at the top of his giving.

However, his new movie, Cry Macho, is not bad at all, but it does not live up to the legend.

Today, Eastwood is on the level of John Wayne in the mid-fifties to early sixties, icons of Western/cowboy cinema, it would never be possible to imagine what Western cinema would be like without them.

The film is a little distracted, there is the story of a man who gives another on a mission interspersed with two love stories between two women and an old man, and there is a boy whose story asks questions and the film does not answer them.

The film is based on the 1975 novel of the same title by N Richard Nash, who wrote part of the script before his departure with Nick Schenk.

Set in 1979, Cray Macho sees Mike (Eastwood) live alone in Texas after his wife and son are killed in a car accident, and his career as a rodeo star ends when he falls from a horse and breaks his back.

Howard (Dwight Yoakam) was Mike's employer, and he was constantly sponsored by him, and now Howard wants Mike to return the favor by going to Mexico and getting the first son (13 years) Rafael (Eduardo Minette) back to Texas.

We don't want to be harsh on the myth, for who wouldn't want to live into the ninth decade and stay in peak form and in good health?

But when we know that Howard sent two people and they failed to get his son back, why does he think that old Mike, wounded in his body, will succeed?

Mike goes to the mansion of Rafael's mother Lita (Chilean Fernanda Orihula), a seductive woman in a tight dress surrounded by her guards who runs an illegal business.

Lita tells Mike that Rafael is not an innocent boy, he is a tough, rebellious teenager, a troublemaker, and a cockfighter.

She tells him take it if you want.

Then Lita tries to seduce Mike, who refuses her moves towards him, so she gets angry and accuses him of insulting her.

Mike finds Raphael in a Duke duel and is about to get into a duel with his rooster (Macho), but the police arrive and stop the duel.

After a poor dialogue during which Mike tells Rafael that he came to take him to his father, Cray Macho turns into a road movie and along the way we wonder: “If Rafael is as his mother describes him, why do we see him as good, naive and innocent with Mike?” And if Rafael loves his rooster (Macho), why then Force him to enter violent duels in order to earn money?

There are no answers in the movie!

Lita's men and police chase Mike and Raphael and prevent them from reaching the border, and things get complicated when Mike's car is stolen.

The two are forced to live in a border town where there is only one restaurant, run by Marta (Natalia Travin), a widow who loves Raphael and is drawn to Mike and provides them with shelter.

For some reason this restaurant seems closed and we see its seats upside down on its tables, and only Marta, Rafael and Mike are eating in it.

Cray Macho is full of useless dialogue. When Mike tells Lita that he has found Rafael, she asks him where?

He says: Where you told me that he will be there!

It is a reference to their first conversation when I told him that he is in cockfights.

And when Mike tells Rafael he's taking a side road, he does just that!

Do these two scenes need dialogues at all?

There is an unfinished sub-story about the real reason Howard wanted to bring his son from Mexico.

And there's a boring lecture Mike gives in the car to Raphael that "macho" (the term, not a cock) is overrated.

Macho means macho or macho, a word that dominated action cinema in the '80s due to macho heroes like Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Interestingly, Eastwood himself led Macho cinema in the seventies before the macho, especially the Dirty Harry films from 1971 to 1988. Does this mean that the man retracted the ideas he believed in half a century ago?

It's nice to see Eastwood even if he used an alternative to horseback riding in the movie.

The man is excused, he is old, but we expected a lot from a man who revived Western cinema from the sixties to the nineties, and this is Eastwood's first Western since 1992, and he needed more attention instead of the movie and its hero in a relaxed state as if nothing mattered.

It would have been better for Eastwood to be content with directing and starring his young friend Bradley Cooper, and it would have been better to infuse the film with the missing elements of the Western, such as action, suspense, and a corrupt or incompetent police chief.

One thing we do know for sure is that this very ordinary movie could have been better.

• We expected a lot from a man who revived Western cinema from the 1960s to the 1990s.

 • It would have been better for Eastwood to be content with directing and giving the lead to his young friend, Bradley Cooper.

To view the entire topic,

please click on this link.

Follow our latest local and sports news and the latest political and economic developments via Google news