The Mule by Sam Dolnick and Nick Schenk, based on an article from The New York Times - 7.4 out of 10

The Mule by Sam Dolnick and Nick Schenk, based on an article from The New York Times

7.4 out of 10

Having blessed the audiences with Unforgiven, Million Dollar Baby, Gran Torino, Letters from Iwo Jima, American Sniper, Clint Eastwood or any other film maker would have trouble to produce, direct a work of equal value, never mind a superior one.

Therefore, it sees that The Mule is actually a very good motion picture, to which the public and critics come with too high expectations on the one hand, while on the other the republican – this is surely another reason this viewer, in the age of Trump, is more than cautious and biased when it comes to Eastwood works – director may suffer from a Woody Allen syndrome.

Like the comedy author, the eighty nine year old veteran actor – director may have come to the point where his films have a lot in common – the lonely wolf lives without much concern for social norms and is rather grumpy and outcast – Unforgiven, Gran Torino and The Mule, with perhaps the outlier from American Sniper thrown in.

In The Mule, the protagonist appears to have been a real person and Eastwood has taken his inspiration from an article about a ninety year old man used by the Sinaloa Cartel as a driver that would take the drugs for them, albeit the details of the passion for flowers and the family issues might be artistic license, to make the story more interesting.

Earl Stone would be called Tata by the cartel members and he is played by Clint Eastwood, a man that is divorced from his wife, Mary aka Dianne West – right here we have an element that caused displeasure for this viewer, for her style is generally annoying from where I see it and the lines she had to say when she became ill did not add in any form to the enjoyment of the feature.

Moreover, the daughter of the Korean War veteran that would soon become a mixture of hero and antihero, with his involvement in the cartel, does not want to see him and he would admit at various stages to his failure in his personal life – which has always been set on a less important level than his professional activity – and that is what matters most.

Positive psychology studies made to see what sets the happiest people apart have shown that they do not have billions of dollars in common…indeed, China and India have seen their GDP per person rise spectacularly over the rise, while at the same time their happiness levels have plunged, demonstrating that more money does not equal wellbeing.

The happiest individuals have in common a wondrous relationship with family and friends, with which they have very strong bonds, while at the opposite end, those who live in isolation are in a much more serious danger than those who smoke – the peril is twice as big – and The mule may make another case for this idea: if we do not keep close to our family, we may end up in the clutches of gangsters – stretching it for jocular purposes.

Earl Stone has no money, but a lot of problems require financial solutions around him, from the foreclosure announced for his farm, to the money needed for his granddaughter’s studies to the destruction caused by fire – and the years needed for the insurance company to remedy that – at the club of people he is close to, and hence he decides to…work for the Mexican drug cartel, although to begin with, he thinks he just delivers some packages and is paid for that.

On some levels, this was also amusing, albeit we can never lose sight of the fact that this is a very Dark Endeavor, with images of the gruesome, revolting violence of these people – used by the one who suffers from Narcissistic Personality Disorder and sits in the White House, maybe to the joy of the director of this film, for political gain – casting a shadow over the smiles brought by the veteran who does not know about mobile phones and what texting is.

The humor, pleasant manner of the otherwise wise old man is sometimes mixed with what may be conservatism, lack of understanding for the times and in the worst case scenario it could be racism, when he jokes about beans and Mexicans, or helps some African Americans who have a flat tire and calls them “negroes” or uses some other inappropriate terms that were the norm in his young days, but not anymore when he is ninety.

On some other level, once he becomes prosperous and buys himself a luxurious Lincoln pickup truck – a brand for older people – he also hires sex workers – that he might call prostitutes – and one wonders for what purpose he takes two women to his room, which is a motel surveyed by DEA agents.

A white man in his late eighties does not easily become a target of investigation, being so much different from the profiling made by agents and his success is so great that he meets with the big boss played by Andy Garcia, who will be killed in a coup and the new head will show more cruelty, if that is possible for the figurehead of such monstrous organizations.

Earl has some Close Encounters of the Third Kind, in one he manages to put cream on the nose of a sniffing dog, just as it was heading towards his vicious cargo, while in another he offers a local policeman gifts to avoid his Mexican handlers being caught with him, or more likely, for the man of the law to be murdered by the drug traffickers.

Overall, The Mule makes for an entertaining almost two hours, but it is not on the level of the other remarkable Clint Eastwood movies mentioned at the beginning of this note.