Macho and Sainthood
Cry
Macho
Perhaps in part because
of the natural progress of his career and his life, Clint Eastwood seems to be
following a kind of pattern in his recent works. In Million
Dollar Baby (2004) he played a grizzled prize fight manager/trainer who reluctantly
agrees to help a young woman (Hillary Swank) succeed in a boxing career. In Gran
Torino (2008) he played a cranky retiree from the auto industry in Detroit
who reacts badly to the Hmong family who move in next door, but ends up learning
something about them and their culture and defending their teenaged boy from
the bullying of a gang of dangerous thugs.
Now in Cry Macho he plays,
yes, a beat-up old rodeo cowboy who journeys to Mexico to recover his boss’s
son (Eduardo Minett) from his neglectful mother. In the process, of course, he and the boy come
to understand each other and create a relationship.
Rather like a geriatric
version of the Bridges of Madison County,
Eastwood also once again wanders into love, this time with a generous Mexican
woman who owns a small restaurant. The
rest of the story unfolds in a reasonably predictable manner, with Eastwood and
his companion journeying northward to the United States, encountering numerous difficulties
and challenges, some of them violent, along the way. The film proceeds in a familiar linear series
of movements and events, ending pretty much as one would expect. Slow, sentimental, repetitive, Cry Macho suggests that for all his
films, achievements, and yes, years, Clint Eastwood still wants to make movies;
it also suggests that, alas, his most interesting work may belong to the past.
The
Many Saints of Newark
The
many saints of the title translate literally from the Italian Moltisanti
family, familiar of course from The Sopranos,
where Christopher Moltisanti (Michael Imperioli), Tony Soprano’s nephew, serves
as a kind of surrogate son to the boss of the family. Strangely, the film begins with a voiceover
from the late Christopher, who now and then adds a bit of narrative to the
action; he explains that he’s dead, killed by his Uncle Tony (followers of the
series will recall that climactic event), and prepares the way for the rest of
the movie.
That
rest of the movie proceeds rather like an extended version of a Sopranos episode, only set in a past
that suggests something about the future that the viewers already know. Focusing on the Moltisanti family, the film shows
the infighting, jockeying for power, violence, and sexual habits that appear in
the original series. It also provides
some history in its treatment of the Mob’s surrender of the numbers racket to
the African American hoodlums of Newark, an event that also occurs accompanied
by gunfire. Some intra-family
maneuvering and betrayals, plus a couple of shotgun blasts, help establish the personalities
of the people who will become familiar in the television show, and also
underline the particular viciousness of Anthony Soprano’s Uncle Junior (Corey
Stoll).
Beyond
its retrospective look at the people, events, and forces that shaped the
original characters, the film also shows the young versions of the adults who
will later populate that familiar area in Northern New Jersey. Carmela (Lauren
DiMario) appears as a sensible teenager trying to stop the antics of young
Tony; John Mugero, the actor playing the young Silvio Dante, simply imitates
the stiff posture and downturned mouth of Steve Van Zandt.
Michael Gandolfini, son
of the late James Gandolfini, of course provides the central gimmick of the
film; the notion of the son of an actor playing the son of the character his
father established should prove irresistible.
Although his school guidance counselor tells Tony’s mother Lydia (Vera
Farmiga) that her son is highly intelligent, with good qualities of leadership,
the movie shows him as a dumb lout, what used to be called a juvenile
delinquent (do they use that term anymore?), a vandalizing punk. As an actor, he may be adequate, but unlike
his late father, beyond some scenes of overplaying, he possesses absolutely no
presence on the screen.
Ultimately, the movie
seems oddly less satisfying than, say, one of the better episodes in The Sopranos. Showing the background of the people, their
younger selves, must have struck the filmmakers as a great idea, but the
reality fails to live up to that idea.
The linear plot, the labored attempts at characterization, and the flat
performances of most of the actors all suggests that actually few saints exist
in The Many Saints of Newark.
