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Although Clint Eastwood delivered Richard Jewell to the public in 2019 in a directorial capacity, we haven’t seen the Western star on screen since the year prior in The Mule. That changes next month with the releases of Cry Macho, a project that Eastwood has been connected to for literally decades. Eastwood’s latest role sees him playing a horse breeder who ventures across the border on a noble mission, and the first trailer for the Warner Bros feature has finally arrived.
Based on the same-named novel by N. Richard Nash, who worked on the screenplay before his death in 2000 (Gran Torino’s Nick Schenk is credited as a co-writer), Cry Macho follows Mike Milo, an award-winning horse breeder and rodeo star in 1979 whose glory days are long behind him and who suffers from alcoholism after losing his wife and son. Like so many characters Eastwood’s played over the years, Miko doesn’t suffer fools gladly and isn’t shy about saying how he really feels about someone, as evidenced by his words to Dwight Yoakam’s Howard Polk, his former employer.
The latest chapter of Mike Milo’s life kicks off when he’s hired to retrieve Howard’s son, Eduardo Minett’s Raphael, a.k.a. Rafo, from Mexico and bring him home. As the trailer shows, Mike succeeds in finding the young man, but as they travel down backroads to make their way back to Texas, they’ll face unexpected challenges, which paves the way for Mike to find his way towards his own sense of redemption. And for those who are wondering about why this tale is called Cry Macho, not only is it because Raphael named his rooster Macho, but Clint Eastwood’s character also gives a nice speech about how the idea of one being macho is overrated.
A Cry Macho movie has been in development since the mid-1970s, when N. Richard Nash first wrote the story as a screenplay, only to have 20th Century Fox reject it twice, leading Nash to turn it into a novel. In 1988, Clint Eastwood was attached to play Mike Milo, but he dropped out in favor of reprising Dirty Harry in The Dead Pool. Fast-forward to October 2020, Eastwood rejoined Cry Macho to both star in and direct, with principal photography occurring from November 1 to December 15 of that same year. Along with the aforementioned actors, Cry Macho’s cast includes Natalia Traven, Fernanda Urrejola and Horacio Garcia-Rojas, among others.
Cry Macho will premiere both in theaters and on HBO Max on September 17. If you’re not subscribed to the latter streaming service, you can rectify that with this link. Our 2021 release schedule is also available to look through if you’re curious what other movies are coming out for the rest of the year.
