Clint Eastwood is 91 years young, yet he’s more prolific than filmmakers a third his age. Even at his advanced age, he cranks about one a year. He was even filming during the pandemic. The result is Cry Macho, the 39th movie he’s directed in 50 years. It’s also the second since 2018’s The Mule to feature him driving around, with at least some time in Mexico. And as per the trailer, it very well might blow Pete Davidson and John Mulaney’s mind, much as The Mule did not so long ago.
The ad finds the erstwhile Man with No Name once again donning a cowboy hat, playing a former rodeo star who, like his horticulturalist in The Mule, has fallen on hard times. Desperate, he takes a job from an old friend (Dwight Yoakum), which involves fetching his son (Eduardo Minett) from Mexico and bringing him home. It looks like there’s plenty of reluctant bonding, grizzled aphorisms, even a rooster named Macho.
It also looks like yet another chance for Eastwood to ruminate on his long career. Eastwood won his first Best Picture Oscar for 1991’s Unforgiven, which found him wrestling with his violent screen image. Three decades later it appears he’s still doing it. “I’ll tell you something: This macho thing is overrated,” Eastwood’s character tells his young charge. “Just people trying to being macho to show they’ve got grit. That’s about all they end up with.”
There’s also jokes, including a double entendre at trailer’s end so saucy we can’t print it here. But what would you expect from a legendary actor and filmmaker who, in The Mule, gave himself not one but two threesomes?
You can watch the trailer in the video above. Cry Macho — and, almost needless to say, great title — arrives in theaters and on HBO Max on Sept. 17.