63 years since he first appeared on-screen in an uncredited role in
Revenge of the Creature (1955), The Mule is 88-year-old
Clint Eastwood's first acting role since
Trouble with the Curve (2012), and his first film as a director since about a week ago. It is, however, the first time he's directed himself since the excellent
Gran Torino (2008). Known for being incredibly efficient when it comes to filmmaking, Eastwood likes to get scripts into production before they've gone through too many rewrites, he rigidly shoots only what's on the page, he avoids multiple takes and on-set experimentation, and he keeps the editing process as simple as possible - so basically, he's the anti-
Terrence Malick. With this in mind, he has maintained an extraordinary rate of turnover, with The Mule the 37th feature he's directed since
Play Misty for Me (1971).
Of course, when you work at that rate for as long as he has, you're going to put out a few duds, and although his directorial output has gone through ups and downs in the past, his most recent work has been arguably the most disappointing of his career, with pretty much everything he's directed since Gran Torino being subpar. Whether it's the hokey sentimentality of
Hereafter (2010), the oversimplification (and awful makeup) of
J. Edgar (2011), the lifeless
Jersey Boys (2014), the unashamed and troubling jingoism of
American Sniper (2014), the unnecessary embellishments of
Sully (2016), or the spectacularly misjudged experiment in casting that was
The 15:17 to Paris (2018), the days when he could direct no less than seven masterpieces -
Unforgiven (1992),
A Perfect World (1993),
The Bridges of Madison County (1995),
Mystic River (2003),
Million Dollar Baby (2004),
Flags of Our Fathers (2006), and
Letters from Iwo Jima (2006) - in a 14-year period are long gone. Indeed, the most notable thing he's done in the last decade is ramble somewhat incoherently to an empty chair.
The bad news is that The Mule is a strangely formless film, almost a collection of only vaguely connected scenes rather than an actual narrative with forward momentum; it has precious little depth or nuance; there's some troubling casual racism, most of which we're encouraged to laugh at; the tone is all over the place; Eastwood's character has not one, but two threesomes with young women; and it wastes almost all of its excellent cast. The good news is that, somehow, it's extremely enjoyable.
Telling the story of Earl Stone (Eastwood), a 90-year-old horticulturist and Korean War veteran, who becomes the Sinaloa Cartel's most prolific drug mule, the film is written by
Nick Schenk, based on Sam Dolnick's 2014 New York Times article, "The Sinaloa Cartel's 90-Year-Old Drug Mule", which tells the story of Leo Sharp, a horticulturist and World War II veteran who became the Sinaloa Cartel's most reliable mule.
The first thing to be said about The Mule is that the trailer is misleading. Suggesting a tense, nail-biting thriller in which Stone is appalled to find out what he has been transporting, but is unable to back out of his deal, and must try to keep the Cartel on-side whilst evading the attention of the DEA, the trailer has next-to-no relationship with the actual film. It's not tense, Stone isn't overly concerned when he learns what's in the bags, and the very narrative structure means it's inevitable that the DEA will catch up to him sooner or later. It most certainly isn't the
Michael Mann-esque crime thriller it's being advertised as. The Mule is laconic and contemplative, laid-back and not especially dramatic. Indeed, as drama, The Mule is fairly insubstantial, telling a threadbare story populated by underwritten characters, void of much of an emotional core, and with next-to-nothing in the way of a dénouement.
Eastwood plays Stone as full of regret, someone who knows he was a terrible husband and father, and who is attempting to make up for his mistakes with his daughter Iris (
Alison Eastwood) by being there for his granddaughter Ginny (
Taissa Farmiga). From a physical standpoint, Eastwood looks noticeably older than he did in Trouble with the Curve; he walks hunched over, he looks frail enough for a strong wind to knock him down, there's next-to-no meat on his arms. Almost all of that Eastwood-ruggedness is gone, and this is easily the most physically vulnerable we've ever seen him on screen.
In a lot of ways, Stone is not unlike Walt Kowalski, the hateful racist character Eastwood played in Gran Torino. They are both Korean War veterans who find themselves alienated from the world they live in, and who believe the next generation lack fortitude. However, Stone is much softer, and on the universal scale of racism, whereas Kowalski is
Mel Gibson-racist, Stone is
Prince Philip-racist; the type of racism we forgive because he's 837 years old, half-senile, and grew up "in a different time." Sure, he calls Hispanics "beaners" and jokes about them getting deported, but they don't seem to mind. Sure, he pulls over to help a black couple change a tire, proudly telling them he likes "to help the negro folks out", but they just politely inform him that people don't use the word "negro" anymore. These examples are played for laughs, and whilst that might be fair enough in a film that depicts non-Caucasians with something resembling diversity, The Mule's non-white characters are one-dimensional stereotypes; every Hispanic character, for example, is either a drug-running criminal or an industrious labourer. If the film itself didn't come across as so racially reductive, Stone's racism would be easier to accept and defend.
Perhaps the film's most egregious failing, however, is that it never once addresses the fact that Stone's criminal enterprise is fuelling addiction and destroying lives. The darker implications of his drug-running are kept firmly behind the curtain, out of sight of the audience. Instead, The Mule presents Stone as almost a modern-day Robin Hood, using his new-found cash to pay for Ginny's wedding and education, and to renovate the local VA hall. Even when the film has no option but to deal with his criminality, it's done in such a way as to minimise the darker aspects. For example, Laton (
Andy Garcia), the head of the Cartel, may be the most jovial and least-threatening drug lord ever put on screen. García does what he can, but given the fact that most of his screen time sees him fooling about with a solid gold shotgun, his options are limited. A much more effective character is Gustavo (
Clifton Collins Jr.), Laton's henchman. Collins Jr. is a superb actor, and can do legitimately intimidating in his sleep, but even an actor of his calibre can do little with only three scenes, in two of which he doesn't even have any dialogue.
Hand-in-hand with the film's non-threatening drug runners is its depiction of local law enforcement, who are, for the most part, presented sarcastically (at one point, Stone distracts a pesky cop with a tub of caramel popcorn). A key scene in relation to the film's depiction of both law-enforcement and minorities, but one which is disappointingly played for laughs, is when the cops pull over who they think is their man only to quickly realise their mistake (it's a young Hispanic) and they're guilty of racial profiling. The man is terrified, well aware of stats concerning police shootings of non-whites (there's something deeply unsettling about how well he knows the routine, and his line, "statistically speaking, this is the most dangerous five minutes of my life" speaks volumes about modern America). The scene should have given rise to a socio-political commentary but Eastwood is more interested in guffaws. We've seen racial profiling and resultant deaths examined in several recent films -
Widows (2018),
The Hate U Give (2018), and
Monsters and Men (2018) - as well as older titles such as
Crash (2004) and
Fruitvale Station (2013), but the depiction here is very shallow.
Another issue is that the film's structure is bizarre - there's no real sense of narrative cohesion, as one scene jumps to another without a huge amount connecting them. You could take the various driving scenes, cut them in a completely different manner, and you would still have the same film. The whole thing feels void of urgency, and after a while you realise that the threadbare outline of a story is all the story you're going to get. Additionally, there's an utter lack of tension, and the way Eastwood's camera leers at the bare posteriors of a bunch of women at a party in Laton's house is disconcerting, and pretty much a textbook example of the male gaze. Also, with the single exception of Stone, the characters are one-dimensional at best.
However, irrespective of these failings, I thoroughly enjoyed The Mule. It could and should have been a lot better. It could have been a socially conscious thriller looking at racial profiling, drug-dealing, American masculinity, generational conflict, socio-economic issues. But, in fairness, that isn't the film Eastwood set out to make. He has made many interesting political films in his career. The Mule is not one of them. Instead, he's turned the material into a jaunty, congenial, inoffensive, and easy-to-watch meditation on age and family, set in a milieu where the one-time trappings of male success are now considered character failings, and focused on a character unable to wrap his brain around this shift in ideology. Despite myself, I can forgive the casual racism, the structural problems, the wasted cast, the use of serious social issues to get cheap laughs, and I can do so because the film is simply enjoyable. The Mule isn't going to change your life, nor is it going to win Eastwood a legion of new fans. But it was never supposed to. Instead, it accomplishes exactly what it set out to do. And it's immensely entertaining to boot.
