Directed by:
Clint EastwoodScreenplay:
Nick SchenkCinematography:
Yves BélangerComposer:
Arturo SandovalCast:
Clint Eastwood, Bradley Cooper, Dianne Wiest, Taissa Farmiga, Michael Peña, Alison Eastwood, Andy Garcia, Laurence Fishburne, Clifton Collins Jr. (more)VOD (1)
Plots(1)
Eastwood stars as Earl Stone, a man in his 80s who is broke, alone, and facing foreclosure of his business when he is offered a job that simply requires him to drive. Easy enough, but, unbeknownst to Earl, he’s just signed on as a drug courier for a Mexican cartel. He does well—so well, in fact, that his cargo increases exponentially, and Earl is assigned a handler. But he isn’t the only one keeping tabs on Earl; the mysterious new drug mule has also hit the radar of hard-charging DEA agent Colin Bates. And even as his money problems become a thing of the past, Earl’s past mistakes start to weigh heavily on him, and it’s uncertain if he’ll have time to right those wrongs before law enforcement, or the cartel’s enforcers, catch up to him. (Warner Bros. US)
(more)Videos (1)
Reviews (14)
A slow, old-school ride in the style of Gran Torino, in other words, the typical Eastwood signature of the new millennium. A story about family and life experiences from the mouth of a grumpy old man, this time with some drugs and cartels mixed in here in there. Eastwood, however, pulls it off with a refinement and grace all his own. It's nothing we haven't seen in many more animalistic and dramatic variations, but few can season it with such a dose of life experience and satirical insight. It's a pity there are so many great actors and so little room for their characters. Everything stands and falls on Eastwood, and maybe that's a bit of a shame. Plus for Andy Garcia, aka the man with the golden gun.
()
A safe bet. Even though the family sub-plot almost surprises in its unsurprisingness, developing into inadequately fairytale morality, and heading overall towards an inevitable finale, I enjoyed it and was even moved at times. The legendary personality of the director/actor (especially the later) is evident in every line uttered with gusto and in every camera movement, with a narration that never grinds, the likeable evolution of Earl’s motivations and the position of the investigators, so the slightly repetitive scheme gradually becomes more dramatic and, despite the perhaps exaggerated laxity, you can feel in the story an old man’s sincere recapitulation of a life that cannot be lived again and whose errors cannot be mended. Clint is great again, you will get used to his character, laugh with him and feel sorry for him. And the solid cast of known actors in secondary roles makes it even more pleasant. 80%
()
If there had also been a lot of smoking in this movie, it would definitely have been Jaroslav Kubera's favorite film. The most annoying thing about the film is that it tries to sell itself as the outsider story of an old fart in a present incomprehensible to him, doing so at a time when social demands under the banner of the winning slogan "Make America Great Again" call for exactly these types of characters and roles. Not to mention how much the semi-dead and nearly immobile Eastwood, relishing in spouting controversial minority epithets, which he qualifies as his right given his advanced age, resembles that unfortunate creature in our country sitting in Prague Castle. Who knows if it was more due to Schenk or to Eastwood, but the film's seemingly conciliatory toothlessness then permanently suggests that, while no one has anything against lesbians or blacks, a time when old grease monkeys begin losing their honest, sweat-stained jobs to the Internet is the same as a time in which it has become no longer desirable to call lesbians dykes and blacks negroes. So let's not be fooled for a second that this film doesn't do politics. You can try to retreat into comfortable escapism and get swept up in the story, but I don't recommend that either, because the film is not even able to exploit its plot holes for the sake of entertainment, but instead does exactly the opposite. The boring Pilcher-esque part with the late coming together of the family (yes, even featuring cancer) is annoying in itself. But if you have to keep thinking that none of this would have happened if a Mexican cartel had been so kind as to place a GPS tracker in the car carrying three kilos of coke for them, it's practically unbearable. It's unbearable even to mention the police work, which is actually based on information from a single informant. Fans of early Harmony Korine or Gaspar Noé will surely get what they came for in the scenes where the undead Eastwood, with the light already shining through his eyes from the other side, gets wild with the ladies.
()
The Mule doesn't rely on pure rawness and relentless depression like Gran Torino or Million Dollar Baby. Clint Eastwood's latest film has a fairly laid-back undertone, which, given the subject matter of smugglers and the cartel, might seem like a mistake, even an oxymoron, but the opposite is true. Clint manages to dance, sing and cackle like a young man on the cusp of 90, with a few kilos of drugs here and there. Besides the smuggling line, the film also focuses on family-relationship themes, and even though it plays on emotions at times, I still welcomed this level and didn't mind it. It's not Clint's masterpiece, but the film still thrills, entertains and moves, and that's what cinema is all about. And the icing on the cake is the absolutely superb cast.
()
"Thanks, Grandpa." – "You're welcome, dykes." Clint Eastwood is a sure thing. While The Mule (if you compare it to the last few films he's been in) isn't as strong as Gran Torino or Million Dollar Baby, it's thankfully much better than Trouble with the Curve. It's a fun and touching film with a laid-back atmosphere interspersed with some suspense, with one incredibly admirable guy in the main role and the director's chair. Earl Stone is one of his most sympathetic characters.
()
Ads