Parents' Guide to Cry Macho

There's no getting around the fact that Eastwood, at 91, looks a bit rickety for his role and that the movie feels a little slapdash. But it's also an unusually lovely, relaxed work from an icon of cinema. In one scene, Rafa and a grumpy Mike must reload a bunch of stuff into the trunk of their stolen car after the Federales have searched it. A shirtsleeve hangs out of the closed trunk. Mike regards it for a second, starts to fix it, and then waves it off. Why bother? Often, Cry Macho itself feels like that. Some scenes seem to have been stuck together with details haphazardly left out. Dialogue sounds blocky and over-explained. And while Rafa is described as a tough, feral street rat, the cherubic Minett doesn't quite fit the part, any more than Eastwood feels right for Mike.

And yet Cry Macho is such a precious movie. How few filmmakers were or are working at 91, and how many have the courage to show themselves on-screen at that age? (While the movie doesn't specifically discuss age, it's still there.) In a way, it plays like the final films of another great actor-director, Charlie Chaplin -- A King in New York and A Countess from Hong Kong: a bit awkward, but still revealing. Not to mention that this is Eastwood's 39th film, and, learning as he did from directors Sergio Leone and Don Siegel, his classical, no-nonsense style has evolved into a beautiful polish. In this movie, as in many of his others, he wants to demonstrate inclusiveness for characters of color (while acknowledging cultural differences), to discuss the downsides of being "macho," and to show that there's a slower, more delicate, more observant rhythm of life.