Before we actually get into the film in question, I need to get into the circumstances by which I saw this film in the first place. Partly as a means of full disclosure, but mainly because this is something of a first for this blog.
So, I got an email from one of NBCUniversal’s publicists, who offered me an in-season pass to this film for a review. That itself isn’t the unique part; this is actually fairly standard for most of the assignments I get from FilmInk. Except this isn’t through FilmInk. For whatever reason, the publicist contacted me directly to arrange this. As much as I want to crack jokes about how desperate they must be for official write-ups if they’re reaching out to this middle-of-nowhere blog for a review, or that they obviously didn’t see my last review for an Eastwood movie if they were expecting a glowing endorsement… man, getting recognised like this after all these years makes me quite happy, and I’d like to extend my thanks to Universal for reaching out. Although bear in mind that I’m not going to let that colour my opinion of the film itself.
Had I not been contacted and essentially given a free ticket to see this, I likely would have skipped over this feature entirely. I’m basically done with Clint Eastwood at this point. I don’t know how much more I can take of the guy trying to take down bogeymen only he can see (like he did at the Republican National Convention in 2012). I don’t want to see more from Mr. “My god is bigger than your statistics”. But hey, I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth, so I went and saw the movie… and was thankful that it was nothing like the material I’ve come to associate with the filmmaker in recent years.
The plot has the extremely grizzled and tired Eastwood in front of the camera, going south of the border to rescue a child (played quite stiffly by newcomer Eduardo Minett). However, rather than have it serve strictly as the brave American hero saving a child from the influence of the “wrong” culture (see also The Marksman, Rambo: Last Blood), there’s a refreshing lack of racial undertones to this whole thing. It ultimately boils down to the child, Rafo, being stuck between an abusive mother and a neglectful father, who initially tasks Eastwood’s Mike Milo to get the kid back; the deck isn’t stacked to make either choice into the obvious one.
As a result, the production as a whole takes a break from being an exhibit of Eastwood’s vast collection of axes to grind, and even shows his Western cowboy archetype as feeling like he’s come all this way and still hasn’t figured things out yet. It’s coming from a more contemplative place than a lot of his more recent features, and it seems like being a part of this is putting life back into his body. At the start, he looks like he’s preparing for this to be his last ever scene (not film, but scene, like he’s not even sure if he’ll live to see it completed), but as the film goes on, the light in his eyes starts coming back and his connection to Rafo and later on with cantina owner Marta (Natalia Traven) allows him to show his softer, more compassionate side.
It also helps that he and Nick Schenk are reconnecting with one of the better aspects of latter-day Eastwood’s filmography, namely commenting on the kind of masculinity that’s portrayed in older Western cinema and how it doesn’t match up with how things work today. Admittedly, there’s not a lot of such discussion taking place here, as the film is more occupied with life around Mike as it happens (the rescue plot itself ends up taking the back seat for a lot of the middle-third), but what shows up at least makes sense. When Mike talks about how people will do stupid things like fight bulls or ride rodeo horses just to show how “macho” they are, it strikes a chord because it’s not only true, but reflective of the character’s own history. And possibly even the actor’s own history, since it comes right before another proclamation that he’s grown older, but not necessarily wiser.
Whenever I bring this guy up, I always try and maintain that no matter disagreements we may have along political lines, I can’t deny that the man knows how to make a film. And at 91 years old (I’ll be lucky if I survive to half that age), this shows him still being able to wrangle the right people together (mostly; again, Minett is a bit of a letdown, especially as the main verbal translator for the film) to tell a story that means something. I freely admit that this hits more than a few dull spots over its run time, and what it ultimately has to say isn’t quite enough to fill up that time as is, but after how much red I saw from sitting through Richard Jewell, I am thankful for even this kind of pleasantly inoffensive material. I won’t say it’s absolutely necessary viewing, but I can’t say it’s worth crossing state borders to avoid either.
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