'Cry Macho' review: Clint Eastwood's latest doesn't make our critic's day

Has anyone ever tried to cancel Clint Eastwood? At 91, with more than 60 films and four Oscars, his track record of political incorrectness isn’t straightforward. True, women and people of color don’t always fare well in his films — see the no-means-yes rape in "High Plains Drifter" for one example — but sometimes they’re the stars, as in "Million Dollar Baby," "Bird" and "Flags of Our Fathers." When Eastwood played a blue-collar racist who grudgingly befriends his Asian neighbors in 2008’s "Gran Torino," he may or may not have been showing us his real self, but the double-edged role fit him like a glove.

Which Eastwood do we get in "Cry Macho" — the retrogressive action hero or the sensitive filmmaker? The answer is a little of both, but in this particular case they don’t mesh well at all.

In "Cry Macho," Eastwood directs himself as Mike Milo, a creaky former rodeo star. His old boss Howard Polk (Dwight Yoakam), a Texas ranch owner, has a new job for him: Go to Mexico, find Howard’s estranged teenage son and bring him back to help run the ranch. Sounds a little fishy, but Mike owes Howard and can’t say no.

What follows is, at first, a noir. The boy’s mother, Leta (Fernanda Urrejola), is an oversexed crime boss who parades through her villa in a slinky dress trailed by bodyguards. Eastwood’s age preempts any fight scenes — who’s gonna slug a nonagenarian? — but it doesn’t stop Leta from throwing herself at Mike and yowling with rage when he demurs.

The boy, Rafo (newcomer Eduardo Minett), is a street-hardened runaway who turns out to be almost overpoweringly earnest; he delivers every line with the moist-eyed emotion of a young Judy Garland. When Mike and Rafo (and Rafo’s pet rooster, Macho) hole up in a little town where the locals instantly fall in love with them, Eastwood’s film quickly becomes a mawkish, sunset-colored fantasy.

Eastwood has his charms as the gruff, good-hearted Mike, but even viewers in a forgiving mood might grow exasperated with the benign racism of "Cry Macho." It’s one thing for Mike to impress the Mexicans with his horse-whispering, but quite another for the entire town to beg him to cure their animals with his touch. We never see Mike actually do anything; all we see is his Christ-like figure surrounded by the poor and needy. If Mike has some magical quality beyond his skin color, the film isn’t telling us.

As "Cry Macho" moseys along, figuratively tugging hearts and patting Mexicans on the head, it seems best to just give Eastwood a pass on this one — he’s earned it. Let’s hope he sticks around long enough to make more.