Clint Eastwood’s 2021 Western Achieved Something Big for the Actor

Clint Eastwood’s hugely successful career on both sides of the camera has resulted in many hits, but if there’s one genre that everyone associates him with, it’s Westerns. From his classic work with Sergio Leone to Eastwood cements his separation from directors like John Ford with the landmark film “Unforgiven,” the movie legend has repeatedly established that no one really likes him in the Wild West. The dark 1992 “Unforgiven,” in particular, is a iconic spiritual sequel to Eastwood’s classic role as the Man with No Name and won four Academy Awards for his portrayal of aging gunman Will Munny and his world.

Perhaps surprisingly, this magnum opus does not mark the end of the filmmaker’s Western era. In 2021, Eastwood appeared again in “Cry Macho”, the neo-Western that marries “Unforgiven” with shades of another patented Clint hit, “Gran Torino.” It seems pretty clear that Eastwood saw something truly unique in this story about a washed-up rodeo star’s mission to win back his former boss Howard’s (Dwight Yokam) son, Rafo (Eduardo Minett), as in his 2011 film GQ joint interview with Leonardo DiCaprio, he specifically discussed the difficulty of finding new Western storylines:

“When you become a morning idol, like [DiCaprio] here you’re offered a lot of the same things you had success with before. I have seen this happen for almost sixty years now. And the only way to beat fashion is to go against the grain. On the other hand, I never wanted to do a western again, and then ‘Unforgiven’ came. And I’ve never done one since, because I couldn’t find [a script] it took the West in a new direction. So this is probably my last one. But if someone came along and gave me a one-off scenario, I’d probably say, “Hell, yes.” Put me in there!’”

Clint Eastwood was 91 when he made “Cry Macho,” but he had already acted on the script before he even made “Unforgiven.” In fact, he was first offered “Cry Macho” in 1988, but since he felt too young for the role, he originally wanted to cast Robert Mitchum as the main character, Mike Milo. That never happened, and since no one else bit either, Eastwood ended up keeping the film on the back burner until he aged into the role. As he said to Los Angeles Times:

““I always thought I would go back and watch that. It was something I had to grow into. One day I felt it was time to come back to it. It’s fun when something is your age, when you don’t have to work to get old.”

It’s interesting to know that Eastwood was playing with “Cry Macho” long before “Unforgiven.” The fact that he kept it in his mind all these years and chose to revisit it at the age of 90 is also a testament to the impact Nick Schenk and N. Richard Nash’s screenplay had on him. Although critics found the film relatively disappointing, its complex origin story alone makes “Cry Macho” worthy of worthy inclusion in Eastwood’s filmography.