Cry Macho Review

Clint Eastwood understands his age. At 91, he's not running around like a machine gun blasting away baddies, even if that's what we all really kinda want to see him doing. "Cry Macho" is his latest director-staring role, is tailored around the decrepitude of an actor who's, well, 91 years old.

Let me get this out of the way: this is NOT an action movie! Our hero throws one punch, and I counted two violent confrontations and no gunshots, a far cry from the westerns where our star starred and didn't have a name, but that's fine. This is squarely a drama who can only be called a western if the definition dictates that, yes, men ride horses and yes, they wear ranch hats.

Eastwood plays Mike Milo, a sober hasbeen of a cowboy who's past his expiration date. He owes his boss (Dwight Yoakam) for keeping him on the payroll for so long, and now it's time to get even. The mission? Bring back his son Rafael (Eduardo Minett) from his allegedly abusive mother's care over in Mexico City. Superficially, the plot resembles Liam Neeson's "The Marksman" from earlier this year, though "Cry Macho" comes from a decades old novel of the same name by N. Richard Nash. The point? This is an overly familiar tale, but hey, at least it's got Clint Eastwood, and sometimes that's all a production needs.

Mike finds the kid cockfighting, living on the streets but covered in bruises he says is from his mother's palace. Do we believe him? Mr. Rodeo does, and they form a rather sweet relationship over a few weeks of stealing cars, getting girls and some underage drinking. If that's not macho, I dunno what is.

Well, actually Macho is the name of the son's pet rooster, a prize-winning bird who inspires some amusing lines about Milo wanting to roast him over an open fire. I'm not sure if it's legitimately funny writing or only humorous because Eastwood says it. His face aged like an arid sponge, so wrinkled, weathered and shrunk that he's able to command the screen with merely a glace, and that brings a certain level of classy professionalism to this musty story.

In truth, he doesn't get a lot to do here except looking stereotypically macho, and for long stretches, he doesn't do a lot other than snarl. But there is a genuinely good feeling when we watch him eventually smile, particularly at the hands of local grandmother Marta (Natalia Tavern). He also has a poignant piece of dialogue about the true meaning of the word, where we watch him break down the harsh realities of a man who's been so long characterized by the adjective. In the movie, it's about his descend into the vices of drugs and alcohol after he breaks his back and loses his family, but one has to wonder how much of the speech has to do with his own life.

There's a lot to like in "Cry Macho" that you've probably also liked when it was done in other movies; feeling like a thematic follow up to 2008's "Gran Torino" and 2018's "The Mule." Whether that's an observation or a criticism depends on one's tolerance for what is essentially his "Angry White Guy" series.

Kate Review

I'm sure on paper, a film like Netflix's "Kate" sounded like a fantastic idea. Take the basic premise of "Crank," a poisoned assassin looking for revenge and mix in the neon-soaked choreography of "John Wick," topped off with a gender-swap lead- it's no wonder that the idea could attach top talent like usually wonderful Mary Elizabeth Winstead as the lead and a supporting cased including Woody Harrelson and Tadanobu Asano. Yet the end result is a visual candy that leaves you hungry for substance once it's all over. Good thing I love candy, but the problem here is that this is not very good candy.

Mary plays the title Kate, who's exposed to high levels of radiation between missions, and well, that's it, that's the plot. Harrelson plays Varrick, her mentor, a most thankless role that consists of him sitting down, standing up, and I think one time he got out of a car. A character like that in a movie like this can only be one of two things: A) a good guy or B) a bad guy. And here, the script doesn't even try to hide which one he really is.

The film takes place in Japan for an excuse to have brightly colored lights and a few subtitled conversations, mostly in the form of family drama between the men behind her contamination, and some cheap gags about cats.

Her mission takes a detour once the supposed villain's niece Ani, played by Miku Martineau, who's initially used as bait but soon forms a sorta sweet relationship with our heroine. The script gives neither much to work with, with only small pieces of backstory that feel pillaged from other movies. Yet their performances won me over thanks to a spark of chemistry between the duo. Both are talented actresses, and both deserve a better production to showcase them.

That unfortunately doesn't save "Kate" from sinking to the depths of the Netflix backlog; so much of the film is resolved through violence, which is fine by me, but only if there's some personality to it. The gunfights are lazily staged, filled with slow-mo for no reason outside trying to look "cool." The hand-to-hand combat fares better, with a rhythmic pacing that is filmed in a clean, clear way so that you can actually tell who's punching who, but what does it matter? It lacks the sense of humor of "Nobody" and the brutal efficiency of something like "John Wick 3." Oh, she shoved a knife through random henchman #3's jaw? Neat, I guess, but remember when in the latter Keanu Reeves killed a man by shoving a book in his mouth? Now that's cool.

But then again, from the safety of your own house, you can stream a diet vengeance flick that'll keep you distracted for an afternoon. Covid-be-damned, we want our violence, and we want it slick, professionally made, and by golly we want it disposable!

Malignant Review

I dunno what I expected by a film named "Malignant," especially when you consider it's from director James Wan, who also produced and has "story by" credit. His penchant for bloodshed and plot twists is on full-display with his latest efforts, and even when they don't work, I found myself disregarding my standard "taste" and just went along for the twisty and twisted ride.

Annabelle Wallis plays Madison, a would-be mother who's abusive husband meets his due early in the runtime by the title villain. Who this unknown killer is eludes both Maddy and deputies Shaw and Moss, who are now on the case for his death. More people die of course, I mean, its a horror movie, but whole gimmick this time is that our title heroine "sees" the killings as they're happening. The cops don't believe her of course, and we the audience wonder if she's telling the truth, just crazy, or the murderer herself.

The answer to that loaded question might not come as a surprise, especially to any seasoned slasher flick fan, but what's commendable is that there is any sort of mystery here; in an age where so many supposed scary pictures hide from any actual explanation under the guise of god and religion, it's a genuinely good feeling to be watching something that expects me the viewer to piece together the subtle hits ahead of the end's big reveal.

None of that would matter if this was a cheapo geekshow, but it's not- Wan fills many frames with weird camera angles: some swoop overhead others spiral sideways, digging deep into the filmmakers bag of old tricks and exploits them to create something that's so heavy on style it is practically dripping. Sure, it is at the expense of some substance, but hey, that's what the surprise ending is for, providing the illusion of meat on this lean skeleton of a script. 

I won't spoil what actually happens, which means my synopsis of the plot is relatively light, and that is OK. I sat on my couch and pressed play on HBO Max having no real context, which is probably the way to go. It lured me in with a first-act straight out of "The Conjuring" universe, only to swing hard in a completely different direction. Things escalate quickly, becoming bloody and boggling, and its nerve to suddenly shift gears left me guessing what else it had in store. Turns out, we have enough time for a violent, "John Wick" style gunfight in a police precinct, a visit to a spooky, decrepit medical center, plenty of body-horror, as well as a riff on the actual definition of the word "malignant." Is that a spoiler? Only if you've seen a lot of movies.

I am not, however, saying this is a "smart" piece of cinema.

Characters still wonder in dark hallways after hearing a strange noise, cops are unable to hear gunshots from inside their own jail cell, and hospitals with plenty of patients become seemingly empty once inside. These moments are what reminds of what could have been and not what we actually have, resulting in a series of individual highlights surrounded by boilerplate.