Today I will be taking a look at The Mule, which is the 37th film Clint Eastwood has directed (The Dude is 88 years old!)

Walking into this movie I thought I would be getting a classic gritty Eastwood performance where he is the biggest badass on the screen. However, within the opening minutes of the movie you learn that he is not that guy; his character Earl Stone dances, he sings and he has no problem getting after it with the ladies. He likes to tell racist jokes and tends to enjoy his life, however that has come at the cost of his family. This movie bangs it into your head that he was not there for his family because he was a world famous Horticulturist.

However, he has hit hard times and through a connection becomes a Drug Mule for the Cartel (run by the always wonderful Andy Garcia). He is reliable and good at the job and works his way up throughout the movie. All this is happening while the FBI is piecing together the puzzle and has Bradley Cooper and Michael Pena leading the case.

These two guys are so good together in every scene that it made me absolutely livid that they are hardly in this. I thought that was the biggest issue because the stakes never felt high enough due to the fact they underdeveloped those characters. I honestly just want a spin off with these two going around solving crimes Dukes of Hazzard style.

This movie definitely drags at times and it really has a lot of disdain for the younger generation. Eastwood’s character yells at multiple younger adults about being on their phones, and the consistent racism he shows is remarkably out of touch.

A couple other Tidbits:

• His Daughter is played by his real life daughter Allison, who is actually solid in her limited role.
• If the cops know what color your car is why would you not get a new car?
• The Music was very ironic at all times throughout this movie

The story is a little leap of faith but Eastwood does a good job keeping the movie flowing and never letting it get too dull. However as the movie wound down I did start to wonder what the point was of what I just watched. I felt it did not make me really feel anything at all, and to be honest that is ok because sometimes a movie can just be solid and enjoyable. That is what the Mule is.

64/100

*As always all of my movie ratings can be found here Movie Ratings