MovieChat Forums > Cry Macho (2021) Discussion > What a sad way to go out, Clint - crappy...

What a sad way to go out, Clint - crappy movie.


There's a fairly young woman trying to lure a man who can barely walk due to his age (not the character's age, mind you, but the actor who is not even trying to act more youthful) into her bed - what?
I don't mind Clint still acting in films, but it is now impossible to hide his age - so why not play someone of his age - not someone who is younger or at the very least, more youthful than Clint is at this point.
Then there's this scene where he's facing off against a kid - and here too Clint can't do anything physically, so the kid has to basically hurt himself before our eyes, while then acting as if Clint did something to him. Not only is it poor choreography, but there's just too much horrid acting all around. The kid's acting is shit. The action scenes are utter shit. There's not even an attempt being made to make Clint seem younger/youthful to fit the role.
Who is financing this shit? Why is Clint given the director's job?
Is this some kind of a farewell gift from one of his billionaire's friends? Or did he finance this himself? (Clint was the producer)

This is not a good way to go out.

I saw Michael Caine's Best Sellers and it wasn't too bad. Michael Caine played a dude who is old and can't walk - so he can play the role well - it fits his age. He sold it - the film wasn't amazing, but the acting wasn't an issue. In addition, I suspect Michael Caine's mental being is still there, while Clint's is nearly gone. Not only does he look feeble physically, but he's got major brain fog, if anyone bothers to watch his latest interviews. Not everyone ages the same way. We got the corrupt Dr. Fauci who is 80 years old, but he sounds and looks almost like a 60 year old man. Then we got El Presidento Biden who is younger, but looks and sounds like Clint Eastwood in his current 90. Again, we all age differently. At the end of the day, this is a sad way to see Clint go out - playing roles he shouldn't be playing, because he's no longer capable of selling them due to his age. He also shouldn't be directing - since actors in this film are acting like crap - and it's the director's job to fix that - which he obviously isn't doing.

So why is this such a sad affair? If Clint were to play a role of an old, feeble man - we could then be saying - whoa, Clint still got it. He's playing an old man and he's really selling it. But when he tries to take on a younger man's role - and there's no director to try to mask his feebleness, then it looks depressing - truly depressing, because in every scene he looks like he's about to have a stroke - even though none of the scenes call for a stroke acting moment (We all remember how Deniro fared playing a younger man under Scorsese's direction - even a Legendary director can't hide this shit).

Anyways - end of rant. Clint should either start taking on the roles of peeps in their 90's or retire, because this is not good work - it's shite.

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You got a problem with people trying to get it on with nonagenarians? Ageist!!

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i am 15 minutes in and the kids acting is so distractingly bad i aint sure if i can continue

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Kid's acting is bad throughout the whole film. As for Clint - I'm trying to figure out what's making him look so feeble and unable to act more youthful. It's mostly his posture - and his inability to walk - he basically has to drag his feet in order to move forward (this is not acting - basically, his physical mobility is severely limited now - judging by this film and latest interviews). There's this scene where he cooks - and he looks good enough, but then turns around and starts walking - again, posture and the feet dragging just stand out too much). From what I understand, bad posture can be fixed in old people - why is this not being done? Or does Clint not give a fuck anymore at this point?

As for the feet dragging - I wonder if it's just the knee/hip joints that are so fucked in his case? Or did he have all of the joints replaced? Can knee braces help just for the film alone? I feel like they should have a doctor to be available in these films where old peeps are the leads - I think they might offer a few solutions.

In the Irishman, Deniro looked similarly feeble in the fight sequence - and it was his legs that revealed his feebleness. I can't help but feel like if he had knee braces for that scene, he could have pulled it off without any issues, but without them he looked like an 80 year old man fighting. You'd think that with all the money involved in making these films, these kind of ideas would be implemented in each film, but just because there's a lot of money involved in an affair and you have some legends directing it - it doesn't mean that everything is going to be done intelligently. This film and the Irishman are prime examples. All I can say is, it really removes any suspension of disbelief that you may have had.

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Lots of medical problem can cause someone to walk like that and some of them are not fixable. I've known guys in their 30's that had some problems and walk just like that... You also have to consider his character suffered from a broken back which led to his decline... I have no clue if Eastwood can walk normal or not in real life, but if you are playing an old guy that had been fucked up by riding broncs or bulls then you wouldn't expect them him to walk normal... a bit like an old race car driver, I've never see one that didn't have a pronounced limp because of all the crashes and leg injuries.

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That's a good point about his character having suffered horse riding injury years prior.
Then you have to wonder, how the heck was he breaking horses with an injured back? (they used stuntmen for that with dodgy camera work where you couldn't see his face).
Also, why would his boss send a cowboy who can barely walk due to age/injury to get his son and inspire him to become a cowboy?

It should be noted that 5 years ago, he could walk around well enough. https://youtu.be/RHdqZ7F3g-w?t=30

BTW - here is the novel that inspired this film. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cry_Macho

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I could see his old boss sending him because he had already sent two other guys and they failed. So it was possible that every other guy that the boss knew at that point other than Eastwood would have known it was a suicide mission and wouldn't go... so maybe Eastwood was just the only person left that was clueless about it so he had no choice but to hope he could do the job.

Now the breaking horses part was complete shit. My wife and I laughed when that happened because it was so stupid given how fucked up he was... and I even if he wasn't walking around like a Parkinson's patient it still made no sense as the broken back ended his career which would have meant he could ride broncs anymore at that point... so to think he could have done it now wouldn't have made any sense even if he was walking around normal. That was simply wrong in the movie no matter what. If would have made more sense if he had simply had the boy do it and tell him what to do as he was doing in the end. The movie would be better if they just edited that ride by him out.

The latest video I could find of him walking was the December 9, 2019 Ellen show where he walks pretty much normal out to sit down on the show. She introduced him as having been working on his 38th movie which I think would have been this Cry Macho movie, if that is the case then he was walking like he was fucked up on purpose because he didn't seem to have any problems walking on the show. I couldn't find a youtube cut of the show, but you can pull the entire show from usenet, it was season 17 episode 64.

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"Or does Clint not give a fuck anymore at this point?"

Or maybe because he's pushing 92 years old? Duh. Without any sort of automotive devices, how mobile do you think you'll be at 92? You'll probably be lucky if you're able to dribble your oatmeal onto a placemat instead of your urinary catheter.

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lol
He is old, I'll grand you that. I was talking about posture, by the way.
I had to look it up online prior to posting and it's one of the easiest to fix ailments for old folks.

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I'll rent this with him and Dwight Yoakum in it.

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Clint just made Richard Jewell two years ago and that was a really good movie. In fact, it was a step up from his two previous films.

Clearly Clint still has it together mentally unless you think that film was ghost directed.

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How old was his charcter suppose to be 60? 70? 80? It was never said.

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It doesn't say but I think we're supposed to assume he's as old as he looks. At least in his 80s.

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He had a conversation with a chair, what do you expect?

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Biden talks to trees

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Biden talks to trees

Just have to insert politics into everything, don't ya?

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so says the guy that started it.

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That chair was his only friend for a long time after.

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I disagree. This was a well made film and Clint was very good in it.

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Good director makes movies that don't gel with all audiences. Awful directors make movies that are enjoyable. Some people initially like a movie and come to dislike it later. Some come to hate a movie and like it later.

It is as it is. I like some of Clint Eastwood's movies and I don't like others. I still respect the effort.

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Ha - the problem is not with the quality of the story - the problem is with horrible acting in this film by pretty much all parties involved - and yes, director is more responsible for that than anyone else.

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Yep. It happens. Oh well.

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The story was terrible. Completely unbelievable and stupid confusing. They vilified the mother, and then just showed her acting completely weird. And this completely weird crazy women we're supposed to believe has all these thugs working for her? And then the father? And Clint ... what the hell was his stupid story .. this movie is like what movie that came in a box of Cracker Jack would look like.

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Clint has always been a bit of a minimalist, to put it mildly. He doesn't storyboard, doesn't do shot lists, doesn't do rehearsals, or even second takes. To be honest, most of the success of his films shouldn't even really be attributed to him. All he does is just pick a script he likes, shoot it the exact way it was written, while also giving his actors as little to chew on as possible. Not to mention, Clint himself has admitted that he doesn't like to think or intellectualize his films much, and that he usually works from a place of pure gut instinct. Basically, what that means is, if you think a film like American Sniper is pro-war or anti-war, either way, Clint himself probably doesn't know and nor does he care.

In short, the success of Clint's movies has always stemmed more from the people he hires, and much less to do with Eastwood himself. He just so happened to have had a lucky run in the mid to late 2000's, with films like Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby, Letters from Iwo Jima, Gran Torino etc, that fooled people into thinking Clint was an actual director with talent. As a whole, Clint is probably one of the least authoritative or demanding directors out there, hence his inconsistent quality of work.

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Picking a good script and hiring good people is a talent in it of itself. So, in a way, it speaks to Eastwood’s directing skills.

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Notice he could punch that guy pretty good when this goofball script asked for it.

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