The Mule review – Clint Eastwood oozes star power

At 88, the evergreen Clint Eastwood is still making his mark on the movie business.

This veteran writer and director seems to keep pushing in the creative department. Every couple of years he cranks out a movie.

The once-famous Dirty Harry has new grounds to conquer and with The Mule, based on a New York Times article about a real person, he has done just that. The role fits his persona like a glove.

He hasn’t starred in his own films since 2008’s Gran Torino, so the surprise of seeing him again is quite telling. His athletically lanky frame is more fragile and hunched, his gait a tad slower, and his one-of-a-kind voice raspier and more halting. What shines through though is his crotchety rascal-like charisma and he stamps his authority on the production from the opening scenes.

The Mule recounts the unlikely true story of Earl Stone – a divorced Illinois horticulturist who has allowed 21st century progress to pass him by. Technology is a bad word to him. He tends his small garden, where he cultivates prize daisy lilacs, but the soil has turned arid and his American Dream has gone sour.

Clint Eastwood and Alison Eastwood in The Mule. Picture: Warner Bros

Headstrong and dispensing mildly racist jokes, he retains a twinkle in his eye and you never believe he means it. He enjoys winding people up, thinking his age gives him immunity. Earl has never professed to be a good father or husband. His life on the road travelling to flower trade shows never allowed him to be home much.

He made promises all his life to his ex-wife (Dianne Wiest), his daughter (Alison Eastwood) and his granddaughter (Taissa Farmiga) which he never honoured. Now, with the end of the road in sight and his business foreclosed, old Earl has to find another source of income.

The movies takes off, in a manner of speaking, when Earl unwittingly becomes a driver for a dangerous Mexican drug cartel. He is unaware of what the cargo in the back of his rusty, old Ford pickup is, but he is earning easy money and is satisfied.

They all believe this old geezer will never draw the attention of the authorities and he doesn’t until two Drug Enforcement Agency agents, in the forms of Bradley Cooper and Michael Pená, come onto the scene. They are under pressure from their boss (Laurence Fishburne) to stop the flood of drugs coming into the US.

Eastwood’s production is a slow-burner without undue tension, even when Earl gets sucked deeper and deeper into the cartel’s operation. It’s Eastwood’s movie in all respects and, though it features well respected star names, they don’t really get a look in.

lint Eastwood in The Mule. Picture: Warner Bros

Andy Garcia has a cameo role as the ruthless Mexican cartel boss who introduces Earl to the finer things in life, including a bevy of Mexican beauties at his Bacchanalian villa. Earl’s willing to keep going because he wants his family to love him again. Also there is the prospect of Garcia’s henchmen putting a bullet in his head if he doesn’t.

The movie may glorify to a degree the drug empire, but it never takes a moral stand, allowing its lead character to charm audiences. Screen writer Nick Schenk (Gran Torino, Narcos) keeps the script economical with some amusing elements thrown in.

Clint Eastwood still oozes star power, whether he’s playing a hero or an anti-hero. He knows that the Earl Stone story is a winner and he’s the right man to tell it.

Info

Rating: ★★★★☆
Cast: Clint Eastwood, Bradley Cooper, Dianne Wiest, Michael Pená, Alison Eastwood
Director: Clint Eastwood
Classification: 16 DLPSV

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