Clint Eastwood is back playing someone his age.
Mike (Clint Eastwood) a former rodeo rider has been out of the game for a number of years following an accident in which a horse fell on him. He walks looking a little stiff, either from the accident or his age.
The plot revolves around Mike heading into Mexico to return the son of Howard Polk (Dwight Yoakam) to the US, who owns and runs a redo which Mike was star of in the past.
Questions fill the script and we are not clear if Polk, the father is truly interested in his son which he fathered with a Mexican woman on a spree south of the border. The woman who
Is a strong leader of a gang and is well known for her interest in many different men.
The son, Rafo (Edwardo Minett) appears at times to be a bargaining point for each parent. But Mike takes the job of returning the boy to his father in the United States where he will have Manu advantages such as living on a vast ranch with many horses which he would have interaction with.
The son is easily found at a cock fight where he has a champion named Macho.
With a rather slow moving story Mike and Rafo meet various challenges from the underworld henchmen of the mother to various law enforcement folks in Mexico.
Mike and Rafo carrying the cock are befriended by a woman, Marta (Natalia Traven) as they continue heading north on back roads in various vehicles they confiscate from time to time.
The highlights in the film are, a fight in which the rooster saves the two humans and a dancing scene between Marta and Mike in which they dance to the Spanish romantic ballad “Sabor A. Mi” sung beautifully by Eydie Gormé.
In the end we can not be sure how the kid will make out even as the future appears to be up-beat for Eastwood’s Mike, but that’s just not enough to save a rather dull adventure.