The Mule (2018)

Directed by: Clint Eastwood | 116 minutes | drama, crime | Actors: Clint Eastwood, Patrick L. Reyes, Cesar De León, Gustavo Muñoz, Jackie Prucha, Richard Herd, Adam Drescher, Christi McClintock, Keith Flippen, Alison Eastwood, Kinsley Isla Dillon, Dianne Wiest, Joe Knezevich, Megan Leahy, Taissa Farmiga , Austin Freeman, Victor Rasuk

One of the most successful American drug runners of all time was also one of the most unlikely. Leo Sharp was a war veteran who had fought in the Korean War and for years was known as the daylily king, whose home-grown new varieties went all over the world. You don’t expect a man with green fingers to transport large consignments of drugs for a Mexican drug cartel. Perhaps making it even more unlikely, Sharp was in his late 80s at the time of his arrest. The bosses of the Sinaloa cartel were well aware that, as an elderly white man, he would never be seen as a suspect by the narcotics squads, as for more than a decade he was able to smuggle thousands of pounds of cocaine unmolested from the Mexican border town of El Paso in Texas to Detroit. , Michigan in his black Lincoln Mark LT pickup truck. The narcotics were just in bags in the back of the car, between the pecans and papayas. DEA special agents eventually tracked down the notorious drug mule, whom cartel members referred to as “Tata” (grandfather), after a long search and the necessary help from informants, and in October 2011, Sharp was arrested and sentenced to three years in prison.

The New York Times reporter Sam Dolnick wrote an article about the arrest and interviewed the officer who eventually stopped Sharp. That article is the basis of the 2018 film ‘The Mule’. The film was directed by Clint Eastwood and he also plays the lead role; Sharp has also been renamed Earl Stone here. The last time Hollywood legend Eastwood starred in a film he directed was back in 2009 (“Gran Torino”). The screenwriter is Nick Schenk, who we also know from ‘Gran Torino’. Perhaps that is why the films have a lot in common. Earl Stone has enjoyed great success as a lily grower for many years and has become a living legend in plant country. But being on the job has left him neglecting his family, and his ex-wife Mary (Dianne Wiest), daughter Iris (Clint’s real-life daughter Alison Eastwood) and granddaughter Ginny (Taissa Farmiga) don’t thank him for that. . His relationship is particularly strained with Mary and Iris. When things take a turn for the worse in the early 21st century and Earl has to file for bankruptcy, he tries to reunite at Ginny’s wedding, but without success. On a business level, however, he receives an offer that he can hardly refuse. Moving a batch of ‘goods’ from A to B is a piece of cake for a man who has been ‘on the road’ for decades. Is he naive or indifferent? Because anyone with a bit of sense immediately realizes that this is something different than delivering a postal package.

Staying under the radar of the narcotics squad as an elderly man, the headstrong Earl grows into a highly regarded drug courier, who gains a certain legendary status because few pawns in the cartel know who he really is. He is so lucrative that he is even allowed an audience with the top boss of the syndicate, Latón (Andy Garcia) in Mexico. Meanwhile, Colin Bates (Bradley Cooper) and his assistant Treviño (Michael Peña), the DEA agents involved in the Tata case, manage to extract more and more information from their informant. The pressure from above (Laurence Fishburne plays their boss) is increasing: an arrest has to take place really quickly, otherwise there is no point in continuing the operation.

Just like in ‘Gran Torino’, Clint Eastwood here plays a grumpy old man who likes to belittle his surroundings. Here too, the politically incorrect comments about African Americans, Latinos, gays and lesbians are flying around. They are undoubtedly intended to be humorous, but ‘The Mule’ doesn’t get away with it. Earl’s attempt to come to terms with his past and reconnect with his family is also not going well. Eastwood remains above all the ‘cool guy’, he doesn’t seem to really feel the guilt and penance he should have towards his ex-wife and daughter and that’s why we don’t believe it either. He mumbles something, does show up at the right time for a change and waves some banknotes (although money has never really been the problem) and all wrongs from the past are forgotten in one fell swoop….? Not really believable. ‘The Mule’ therefore works better when Clint can drive around in his truck, get involved with dark cartel types and play the murdered innocence towards the outside world. The best scene is where he comes face to face with the unsuspecting Bates, who turns out to be closer to his target than he could ever imagine. Cooper has a lot more to offer than he can show here, and that includes Fishburne, Peña, Garcia and two-time Oscar winner Wiest. ‘The Mule’ revolves around Eastwood; the only one who manages to put himself in the spotlight is Ignacio Serricchio as Julio, a suspicious ‘middleman’ in the cartel who shadows Tata because he doesn’t quite trust the business and for whom Earl develops paternal feelings.

An old fox loses its hair, but not its tricks. Eastwood simply delivers quality and solidity with ‘The Mule’, even though he is already approaching ninety. However, ‘The Mule’ cannot be counted as his best work, neither in directing nor in acting. This movie is too much on autopilot for that. The dramatic scenes are not portrayed and despite the fact that Eastwood is surrounded by a top cast, his opponents get little to do. ‘The Mule’ therefore works best when Clint can be his cool self, when he can show that as a nearly ninety-year-old he still stands his ground against the much younger ‘tough guys’ he has to face. Because he may be moving a little slower than before, he’s grayer, wrinkly and shrunken, he’s still manly and cool.