"Cry Macho" in the cinema: how do you tame a cowboy?

A phrase you always wanted to hear from Clint Eastwood: "This macho thing is overrated." True masculinity is different, and it is only logical that the macho in the movie "Cry Macho" is not Eastwood, the one at almost 92 years of age continued to work on his refinement of ideals of masculinity.

The macho is a rooster.

A fighting cock, that's how much it has to be.

The rooster does not have much to do, but it has to intervene at a crucial point. Eastwood plays an old rodeo rider named Miko Milo who does not go on horseback, but in an old car to Mexico to find a boy there. He is supposed to bring his son Rafa across the border for a friend and business partner. Once in Mexico, there and back. Of course, it's not that simple. Because this Rafa does not live with the Mexican mother either, as one might assume. At the age of 14, he was already emancipated from his parents, who neither gave him the attention they should for a child. Not even upbringing. Rafa is “a monster”, declares the mother cynically. She is a rich, beautiful woman. In Eastwood she still seems to see the sex symbol that it once was.

He still has a job to do

Because she tries to seduce Mike Milo. He apologizes with a classic cowboy excuse: he still has a job to do. The western is the genre where the right men always know what to do. “A man's gotta do, what a man's gotta do.” Tautology is the logic of men who don't have to puff themselves up to become machos. "Cry Macho" is a western with cars. Milo finds Rafa in the rooster fighter milieu and makes him curious with the promise that he could get a "special horse" in America. The prospect of a life on a ranch, of dealing with the strong animals, is at least so tempting that Rafa gives up his resistance. However, the way back, the drive towards the American border, proves to be difficult.Because his client has not fully let Mike in on the implications of this half child abduction. And so one or the other detour is necessary to avoid pursuers or to cheat the police. Mike also needs to gain the trust of Rafa, for whom suspicion has become second nature. This is the stuff that can be used to make a classic, elegiac road movie that is ideal for someone like Eastwood his age. He no longer has to step on the gas, it suits him better if he lets life flow by and adapts to this movement. The old wisdom also applies here: the way is the goal.Mike also needs to gain the trust of Rafa, for whom suspicion has become second nature. This is the stuff that can be used to make a classic, elegiac road movie that is ideal for someone like Eastwood his age. He no longer has to step on the gas, it suits him better if he lets life flow by and adapts to this movement. The old wisdom also applies here: the way is the goal.Mike also needs to gain the trust of Rafa, for whom suspicion has become second nature. This is the stuff that can be used to make a classic, elegiac road movie that is ideal for someone like Eastwood his age. He no longer has to step on the gas, it suits him better if he lets life flow by and adapts to this movement. The old wisdom also applies here: the way is the goal.The old wisdom also applies here: the way is the goal.The old wisdom also applies here: the way is the goal.

The novel by N. Richard Nash, which serves as a model, was published in 1975 and was quickly recognized as showing great promise for a theatrical adaptation.

However, over the years, many different attempts to come to a film with stars like Roy Scheider or Arnold Schwarzenegger were not successful.