Things start to head south — especially when tragedy strikes, and Earl has to choose between work and family once again. In fact, the two films are similar in a lot of ways: Both are based on true stories of old men who got away with crimes running drugs and robbing banks for much longer than they should have.
Both are showcases for Hollywood icons. Perhaps most notably, both feel like elegies for a past in which those men were very comfortable. The Mule is at pains to make sure we are very aware that Earl comes from another time.
There are many many, many moments in which Earl rants about the kids and their cell phones these days. Maybe the strangest thing about this film is that it has all the emotional resonance of the most maligned, sentimental Hallmark movie, trying to force you to feel stuff without telling you why you should. It feels, in the end, inauthentic.
But The Mule left me wishing that all of that experience had been translated into a more serious movie than one about an old man finally seeing people for who they are. Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment: to empower through understanding. Financial contributions from our readers are a critical part of supporting our resource-intensive work and help us keep our journalism free for all.
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By choosing I Accept , you consent to our use of cookies and other tracking technologies. Reddit Pocket Flipboard Email. Clint Eastwood directs and stars in The Mule. In his 40th film as a director—a strange and sometimes hilarious drama about a horticulturist who becomes a drug runner for a cartel—the year-old Eastwood finds a new twist on his legend.
This has been a terribly confusing year for Clint Eastwood diehards. That dramatization of the men who halted a terrorist attack on a train starred the real-life saviors from the event, and had all the dramatic tension of a company softball game. But it has its defenders, predictably. Because Clint-ites, a sect of which I attend the occasional prayer service, are a rare breed among overcommitted movie fans—the kind of cinephiles who valorize mythmaking and old Hollywood austerity and willingly overlook simple flaws like flat acting or awkwardly staged dramatic scenarios.
He wants to get in early and wrap with time for a leisurely lunch. Eastwood is 88 years old, and with that efficacy he has bought himself time and a great number of films that dot his legacy. Some, like , are crap. His latest, The Mule , is, in its extremely odd way, a pinnacle for Eastwood as a director.
But it is his absolute weirdest. And it does something no other Eastwood-directed movie has ever done: It makes him the sucker. This movie is based on the real-life story of Leo Sharp, a retired horticulturist who, in his 80s, takes up a gig as a courier for the Sinaloa drug cartel, driving across state lines carrying illicit materials illegally. Did you know there are flower awards? But also a goof, the doddering comic relief and the rube thrust into a world of newfangled cellphones and cocaine drop points and DEA sting operations and too-trusting highway patrolmen.
Which is to say, The Mule rules. Earl takes the money, of course. He loves being flush, respected, at the wheel. That might disappoint some people, and Eastwood means it to. Early on, before he understands how easily they could kill him, Earl sasses his Mexican handlers. But when they start to rough him up and hiss cabron in his face, he does nothing, nada. He only wants to sniff flowers.
Clint Eastwood has aged into Ferdinand the Bull. Which is fascinating. The thing is, Earl wants to evolve, even if that evolution is opportunistic.
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