The Mule ★★½
LET’S hope Clint Eastwood is wrong about The Mule being his final acting gig.
‘Inspired’ by a New York Times Magazine article, this story of a 90-year-old Korean War veteran and renowned horticulturalist caught transporting cocaine for a Mexican drug cartel should have been a winner.
But it’s not.
It’s directed by Eastwood from a script by Nick Schenke who also wrote one of Eastwood’s best screen characters, the gruff veteran of 2008’s Gran Torino.
The script for The Mule is uneventful, a surprise considering the events upon which it is based, confusing and frustrating in terms of both character development and interaction.
The acting is fine. Apart from Eastwood as drug mule Earl Stone, we have Dianne Weist as wife Mary, Alison Eastwood as daughter Iris and Tessa Farmiga as grand-daughter Ginny, plus Bradley Cooper, Michael Pena, Andy Garcia and Laurence Fishburne in supporting roles.
Unfortunately almost every one of them is wasted, given very little to do or say of any great consequence, apart from one or two odd moments.
Weist comes out best mainly because her character has a story arc that is also seperate to the main story and has a resolution of sorts.
Eastwood’s character, on the other hand, makes little sense at all.
At first he appears unaware that he is being converted into a highly-prized drug mule and that starts to become an interesting approach.
But after it becomes obvious that he is aware, he doesn’t seem to care one way or the other, in fact offering no substantial opinion or insights to his thinking.
The film continues in this vein through a range of ill-conceived sequences, including two instances where Earl engages in threesomes!
The same lack of depth occurs with his immediate family members who are portrayed as honest and principled people yet forgiving of Earl’s litany of shortcomings and past transgressions immediately the money starts rolling out.
There are some moments towards the end of the film between Earl and Mary that are touching, believable and relevant to their stages of life.
But, again, the film ends on another confusing note due to lack of audience understanding and sympathy with the characters and their motivations.
Schenke also wrote the 2014 legal drama The Judge which including some poignant scenes between elderly father and adult son, played by Robert Duvall and Robert Downey Jnr.
The Mule has all the elements of a great film, but none of the cohesion of story-telling and character development required.
Let’s hope there is one last acting gig more befitting this Hollywood legend.