The Mule (2018)

116min

Genre:       Fact-based, Crime, Drama

Director:    Clint Eastwood

Cast:         Clint Eastwood, Bradley Cooper, Dianne Wiest…and more

Writers:     Sam Dolnick and Nick Schenk

-Synopsis-

After falling on hard times and reeling from his failure as a father and husband, an elderly horticulturalist and US veteran becomes a drug mule for a notorious Mexican cartel, but struggles to get out of the deadly game when the net closes in—as Clint Eastwood stars in front of and behind the camera in this unlikely tale based inspired by a true story.

At the impressive age of eighty-eight, classic Hollywood icon Clinton Eastwood Jr. seems as cinematically spritely as ever, committing solely to biographical tales of extraordinary events and the people at the centre of them with gusto. Now after bringing deadly snipers, hero airline pilots and young train terror-fighters to the big screen, the veteran filmmaker turns to his own generation for a stranger-than-fiction tale of regret and redemption, taking Sam Dolnick’s 2014 New York Times article about the most unlikely drug mule ever and combining it with a reflective family drama . . . with decidedly mixed results.

The director himself stars as Midwesterner and Army veteran ‘Earl Stone’, an upstanding citizen and dedicated horticulturalist but absent father to his daughter ‘Iris’ (Alison Eastwood) and neglectful husband to ex-wife ‘Mary’ (Dianne Wiest), who turns to a new line of work when times get tough—a drug-smuggling mule for the Sinaloa cartel. But when his successful cross-country road trips begin to grab the attention of DEA agent ‘Colin Bates’ (Bradley Cooper) and his partner ‘Trevino’ (Michael Peña), and the tentative relationship with his deadly employers sours, Earl’s priorities will be tested like never before as his luck begins to run out and he faces what really matters.

‘The Mule’ is very much a loose adaptation of the true story of WWII veteran Leo Sharp, with places, plenty of facts and all names changed for posterity. But if you’re going to dramatise such a tale it’s imperative to make that drama cutting and effective, and that’s where Eastwood’s latest really stumbles throughout, unable to rely on the simplicity of the director’s narrative style to make the characters or the drama pop out of the screen.

Despite the best efforts of the actors playing Mexican gangbangers and traffickers who certainly look the part, there’s a distinct lack of menace for a film involving one of the most notorious drug cartels ever—the group once led by the infamous ‘El Chapo’—and apart from one butt-clenching traffic stop, there’s a general lack of tension or peril for this kind of crime story.

Instead Eastwood and screenwriter Nick Schenk choose to focus on their own geriatric drug mule Earl, through the lens of a very personal character drama about regret and reconciliation, which may even smuggle in a dose of self-reflection from the director himself. And while it delivers the occasional lighter tones, sometimes involving the character’s generational politically incorrect inclinations which often hit, it’s brought down by a central ill-conceived and sloppily executed family drama dynamic which largely misses the mark.

Even screen veterans Eastwood and Dianne Wiest as the central estranged couple aren’t entirely convincing, and its rather ironic that the tender and personal character moments between them and the family are the least believable moments in the film—meanwhile as the main law enforcement element, Bradley Cooper and Michael Peña are criminally underused and their talents squandered as run-of-the mill movie detectives.

Yet ‘The Mule’ is not a complete bust, as you might expect from master of cinematic minimalism such as Clint Eastwood, and in Earl Stone he does create an undeniably charismatic and inherently endearing character—in spite of his many faults—in one of the softest and least jaded roles he’s played in years. It’s also well shot by Canadian cinematographer Yves Bélanger (Dallas Buyers Club, Brooklyn), and features a sumptuous soundtrack which combines original Latin jazz compositions from the great Arturo Sandoval with classic American standards, folk and county & western.

‘The Mule’ also works to some extent as a meditation on ageing, the regret that often comes with looking back at a long life, and the struggle of adapting to a rapidly changing world. But ultimately Eastwood’s return to the screen is just never engrossing enough, despite being one of his more nuanced performances, and it doesn’t have the emotional impact it’s so clearly designed to elicit, failing to soar above its fascinating true story basic premise or make a lasting impact of any kind.

The Bottom Line…

Moderately captivating as a crime tale but underwhelming as human drama, ‘The Mule’ struggles to balance tension with self-reflection and largely fails to capture the imagination or stir the heart, proving a well-crafted but forgettable latest effort from Hollywood great Clint Eastwood—while barely doing justice to the extraordinary source story and proving that some true life tales are perhaps better left on the page.

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