It's only been out for a week, but do any of you even remember this movie exists? It was kind of dropped out of nowhere and most of us who hadn't heard anything about it were surprised that Clint Eastwood was acting again - at the ripe old age of 88. I remember ten years ago when Eastwood announced his retirement from acting with Gran Tornio. That movie was so good it was a welcome, albeit sad, end to a legendary acting career. It was fitting. However, Eastwood started churning out movies he was directing and they were all meh. All of them. None of them great and none of them bad, but very vanilla bland films. So he came back to acting in 2012... with Trouble With The Curve. Oof. Now, we can't pretend that Eastwood is going to be around forever. He's pushing 90 and each movie he signs on to do could very much be his last. And had it been Gran Tornio, it would've been the perfect final film. But had it been Trouble With The Curve... oof. Shoulda stayed retired gramps. But, because Eastwood's 88-year-body is apparently more vigorous than most human beings, he's still churning out movies nearly every year - TWO this year. He returns in front of the camera with The Mule - a movie that's already been forgotten and disappeared among the high profile holiday films. However, IF this winds up being his final acting role in a film - it's not as good of a sendoff as Gran Torino, but it's a pretty decent last role.
Based on an actual true story, ol' Clint plays Earl Stone, a 90-year-old horticulturist who literally has nothing. He's lost his house and his business because of "the internet". He's lost his family because he was a terrible father and always put work over family. The only person he's close to is his granddaughter Ginny (Taissa Farmiga). When Earl is offered a job of "driving" by a guest at Ginny's wedding shower, he takes it, thinking it'll be an easy job of just driving and getting paid. What he's actually doing is taking large shipments of drugs for the Mexican cartel, run by Laton (Andy Garcia). After a hefty payment the first trip, Earl decides to go back for another ride. And then another. And then another. Until Earl has become the cartel's most successful drug mule... because who is going to suspect a 90-year-old white dude? Working on the case, however, is DEA Agent Bates (Bradley Cooper) who starts closing in on the cartel's runs and getting ever so close to discovering this mule really is.
It's actually a very, very interesting story. It's amazing to watch how Earl is so successful and how he gets out of sticky situations. As with most of Eastwood's roles, Earl is a take-no-shit cranky old man, but he's not up to the gruffness of his Gran Torino character. He's a little older, a little more senile, talks a little bit lighter, and has a much friendlier aura to him. However, he also realizes he's 90 and that nothing really scares him anymore. He's threatened several times by gun-toting cartel members and he tells them to go fuck themselves. He still likes to drink, party, and take home ladies of the night. What's also fascinating about him is that while he has a give-no-shits attitude about getting killed or caught with his drug-running, he does care about patching things up with his estranged family. He knows its never too late to start and while this job may kill him, he puts forth the effort as a 90-year-old that he hadn't put forth in the 89 years prior. Maybe Eastwood is just that watchable of an actor, but I wanted to stay with this character for even longer than the film's running time.
But, the movie itself is just okay. There's just a lot of Eastwood driving back and forth with his payload and not a lot happening in between. The scenes with him trying to repair relationships with his family become repetitive. Him trying repair - them yelling at him that he was never there. And while it was interesting to see Earl doing these drops and the reasons for them - they too get a little repetitive. The scenes with Bradley Cooper are ALSO repetitive. He brings new intel to his boss (Laurence Fishburne), asks for permission to intervene, gets it, it's wrong intel, back to the drawing board. It's a slow-moving film where not a lot happens until the end, and even then, if you've read the true story article you know what happens - it's pretty anti-climactic. But Eastwood has crafted such a good character and he's still such a powerhouse of an actor that it kept me interested and intrigued. There aren't many actors pushing 90 who would've been able to make this movie work like Eastwood does. The rest of the cast is pretty great as well. Cooper is definitely phoning it in after his brilliant performance in A Star Is Born, but even Cooper doing Eastwood a favor in this movie is great. The rest of the cast brings it and the only sore thumb among the bunch is Farmiga - who, in my opinion, is awful in everything she's in. She's definitely the wrong Farmiga to cast these days (BRING BACK VERA!!!)
So, while this PROBABLY will be Eastwood's last on-screen role, it's actually a pretty decent farewell to an actor who should've retired ten years ago. The film itself doesn't really hold up to the character, but then again, it doesn't matter because everyone has already forgotten this movie exists. This movie will live on in people who are browsing HBOGO on a Saturday night and remembered it was in theaters a few years back and you "kinda wanted to check it out" but never did. I'm sorry for potentially killing off Clint Eastwood during this entire review, but I gotta think that The Mule will be, at least for the acting side of things, Eastwood's one last weird, quiet ride.
C+
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