{"id":3675,"date":"2018-12-22T01:49:29","date_gmt":"2018-12-22T01:49:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bryanbuser.com\/365moviesbyday\/?p=3675"},"modified":"2024-05-24T15:31:17","modified_gmt":"2024-05-24T15:31:17","slug":"the-mule","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/365moviesbyday.bryanbuser.com\/the-mule\/","title":{"rendered":"The Mule (2018)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Every trailer for a Clint Eastwood (Unforgiven, Million Dollar Baby<\/em>) directed movie over the last decade-plus has made the film look like it would be a guaranteed Best Picture nominee. Whether that proves to be fruition (American Sniper<\/a>, Flags of Our Father<\/em>) or not even close (The 15:17 to Paris, Hereafter<\/em>) doesn’t affect how great the trailers are. Over the last 15 years, Eastwood-directed movies have earned hundreds of millions more combined than they would have otherwise received had they not had terrific trailers. This is true of 2018’s\u00a0The Mule<\/em>. After seeing the trailer for The Mule for the first time in early October of 2018, the film instantly vaulted to my most anticipated movie of the year. When it wasn’t screened very much before its opening, I got a little worried. Then I saw the mixed reviews start to come in. At the time of this writing,\u00a0The Mule<\/em>\u00a0has a 62% critics square and a 74% audience score<\/a>, a little lower than I anticipated based on the trailer but right around what I expected them to be after seeing the film.<\/p>\n

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So,\u00a0The Mule<\/em>\u00a0was quite flawed. From its opening scene until its ending credits, there are problems with the film. They aren’t necessarily plotholes as much as they affect the flow of the movie and its overall impression. This movie is more inspired by actual events than a true story. There were\u00a0many\u00a0modifications, some of which don’t change the story’s overall trajectory, but some do. But unlike\u00a0American Sniper<\/em><\/a>,\u00a0which will keep you thinking for days, weeks, months, and years and deserves multiple rewatches,\u00a0The Mule<\/em> is a film you can undoubtedly appreciate. Still, it’s different from what you’ll likely want to watch again and won’t be one you’ll think about for days. It was a fine little film. While I like that Eastwood directed and starred in this movie, he does a little better these days doing one or the other. His work behind the camera is a bit more impressive than his work in front of it in the last decade, but I still enjoy seeing him in films.<\/p>\n

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Eastwood plays a horticulturist named Earl Stone, who, in 2005, is doing great as a businessman specializing in daily flowers (whatever those are). He is at the local Midwest Flowerers Convention, where he ironically wins an award for being unconcerned about the Internet and the convenience, ease, and cost of purchasing flowers online. We learn that Earl is at the floral convention instead of his daughter Iris’s second marriage (Alison Eastwood –\u00a0Poolhall Junkies, Absolute Power<\/em>). But life is good for Earl. He prefers buying a crowd full of strangers a round of drinks instead of being there to give away his only child. He is reminded of what he is missing when the bartender asks him if he wants to buy drinks for a wedding party that he hasn’t noticed. It proves to be a theme. Earl is far more interested in driving around the country to various exhibitions, conventions, and competitions than he is with his family. He also has a thriving farm back home that takes much of his time and attention.<\/p>\n

\"the<\/p>\n

Fast-forward to 2013, and Earl’s home has foreclosed. The Internet has swept in and bankrupted his business. His possessions are in his beat-up Jeep, and he has nowhere to go. Promises of paying for an open bar at his granddaughter Ginny’s (What They Had<\/a>, The Nun<\/em>) upcoming wedding have been abandoned. The relationship with Iris is estranged and topped by the tense relationship with his ex-wife Mary (Dianne Wiest –\u00a0Parenthood, Hannah and Her Sisters<\/em>). After Iris and Mary force Earl away from Ginny’s engagement party, he is approached by a friend of Ginny’s who approaches Earl about driving a product from Texas back up to the Detroit area, seeing the older man as a perfect drug mule after learning that he has a pristine driving record.<\/p>\n

Broke and in debt, he takes the man up on his offer and drives to Texas to get his first shipment, not knowing what it is. And even if he doesn’t know that it is drugs, he must have some inclination that what he is transporting is illegal. Why else would he be paid very handsomely to drive very carefully, told he can never look at the cargo, to drop off his car at said location, and come back to it where a considerable wad of cash will be waiting for him. He doesn’t seem too intimidated by the men he routinely meets within Texas, and over time, he gets to know them much more than any drug mule should get to know his employer. He does half a dozen runs, though this movie doesn’t specify the timeframe between runs. With each successful trip, he gets recognized more and more by Joaqu\u00edn “El Chapo” Guzm\u00e1n (Andy Garcia –\u00a0When a Man Loves a Woman,\u00a0Night Falls on Manhattan<\/em>), the head of the Sinaloa Cartel. They feel he could be the organization’s top mule. So he puts two men on Earl to follow his every move.<\/p>\n

It also becomes known to the D.E.A. that huge shipments are being brought into the Detroit area regularly, and agent Jeff Moore (Bradley Cooper –\u00a0American Hustle<\/a>,\u00a0A Star is Born<\/a><\/em>) and his partner Trevino (Michael Pena –\u00a0Crash, End of Watch<\/em>) are put on assignment to find this high-end mule. From this point, it becomes a relatively straightforward cat-and-mouse movie. Only it’s not that because cat and mouse movies are usually exciting and suspenseful, and\u00a0The Mule<\/em>\u00a0wasn’t either of those. Honestly, this movie was a series of one-act plays with the lead characters appearing in different settings. There was the infamous trailer scene where Earl gets pulled over by a state trooper. There are many scenes of Earl disobeying the cartel’s orders by engaging with escorts at night, veering off course to have lunch at his favorite barbecue spot in the Midwest, or helping some motorists fix a flat tire.\u00a0The Mule<\/em>\u00a0failed to follow a cohesive plan. The relationship that Earl tried to repair with his family was something that we never really cared about. In fact, I’m uncertain if there was a single character we cared about, and while Eastwood’s Earl was definitely the protagonist, he wasn’t particularly cheered for. I didn’t care much about what happened to him. I didn’t care if he got caught or got away with it all.<\/p>\n

A scene in a Waffle House near the movie’s end puts Eastwood and Cooper onscreen for the first time. I wonder if Eastwood felt this was necessary or if he could replicate the first of two scenes between Al Pacino and Robert De Niro in the classic Heat<\/em>\u00a0or something else. But it felt out of place and fell flat on its face. Like why would Earl purposefully put himself in the same room with the man who is being paid to capture him and put him behind bars? It made no sense. But neither did many things in\u00a0The Mule<\/em>, a movie that took too many liberties with a true story that might have better been served as a documentary.<\/p>\n

\"the<\/p>\n

At 88 years of age, Eastwood is not past his prime as a director or an actor. He should continue to direct and star, though I don’t know if he should be the leading character in a movie he directs anymore. However, when he’s pitted against Cooper, he is outmatched. And I’m not saying that because Cooper is at the top of his game right now. It would have been difficult for Eastwood to have a great scene with Cooper in his prime. So, they are in two different leagues as actors. They are also in two different leagues as directors. As fabulous as Cooper’s directorial debut in\u00a0A Star is Born<\/em><\/a>\u00a0was, he doesn’t have four Best Directing Academy Award nominations. Hopefully, he will someday, but as of 2018, Eastwood is the best combination of actor\/director that we’ve ever seen, though others (like Robert Redford) are close.<\/p>\n

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Regardless of how great the trailer made it out to be, there is a reason\u00a0The Mule<\/em>\u00a0wasn’t widely screened prior to its release. It’s a fine idea, but it underwhelms. It has a story that seems exciting but isn’t. Its character development is weak, especially the side characters who go from menacing to those you’d want to have over\u00a0for Thanksgiving dinner throughout just a few scenes. It puts Eastwood in a situation that would terrify anyone, but one that he seems too calm and collected for, especially for an 85-year-old man who has never been around violence before.<\/p>\n

The Mule<\/em>\u00a0could be skipped altogether.<\/p>\n

Plot 8\/10
\nCharacter Development 7.5\/10
\nCharacter Chemistry 7\/10
\nActing 7.5\/10
\nScreenplay 7\/10
\nDirecting\u00a0 7\/10
\nCinematography 9\/10
\nSound 7\/10
\nHook and Reel 8\/10
\nUniversal Relevance 8\/10
\n76%<\/p>\n

C<\/p>\n

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