Clint Eastwood is almost 90 and still cranking out almost a movie per year as a director/producer. Many of us thought he was done appearing in front of the camera after 2008’s “Gran Torino” and 2012’s “Trouble with the Curve,” but here he is in “The Mule,” playing a nonagenarian who becomes a courier for the drug cartels.
It sounds like Hollywood hoke, but it’s based on a true story written up by Sam Dolnick, which formed the basis of the screenplay by Nick Schenk.
Eastwood plays Earl Stone, a horticulturist who’s reaping a golden years beset by regret because of a lifetime treating his family as secondary to his other passions. When his farm is foreclosed upon he hears about a chance to make some quick cash.
It’s a pretty simple gig: some people put bags in the back of his battered Ford pickup, he drives it a few states over, parks it in a certain spot and leaves the keys in. When he comes back, the bags are replaced by wads of cash. It isn’t hard to suss out what’s going on.
Gradually Earl grows more and more confident in his new venture, spreading money around generously in his hometown. Unbeknownst to him, a crafty DEA agent (Bradley Cooper) is seeking out the legend of “Tata,” the cartel’s sneakiest mule.
Tonally, this is a strange film. It starts out very fun-and-games, becomes a cat-and-mouse chase in the middle and then turns toward tragedy in the last act. Each piece works well on its own, though they don’t especially mesh.
“The Mule” is the sort of film you sit back and enjoy, but afterward wonder what it all was really about.
Bonus features on Clint Eastwood flicks tend to be rather sparse -- the old-school director isn’t much for promoting his material -- and this one is no exception. There is a making-of documentary, “Nobody Runs Forever: the Making of the Mule” and a Toby Keith music video, “Don’t Let the Old Man In.”
"The Mule" is a great idea for a movie that doesn't live up to its ambitions. Or rather, its ambitions aren't as lofty as they could be.
The latest from director/star Clint Eastwood has been a mystery to critics, at least those outside of New York/LA. The studio, Warner Bros., refused to screen it for regional film journalists. This is usually an indication the movie is a dog. But it's Clint Eastwood, for dang's sake, and he doesn't crank out very many clunkers, even at age 88. The total absence of "The Mule" from the awards race chatter has been mighty perplexing.
(One fine fellow I know suggests the studio is instead placing all its awards hopes on "A Star Is Born," which is probably a smart bet.)
Eastwood plays Earl Stone, an elderly horticulturist who gets caught up as a drug courier, or mule, for a Mexican cartel, transporting hundreds of kilos of cocaine at a time cross-country. He does this at first as a one-off for the money, as his farm has been foreclosed upon. Then he does it for more money, using it to replace his battered 1960s Ford pickup with a brand new black one, help pay for his granddaughter's wedding, fix up the local VFW clubhouse, etc.
But he keeps going, and going, and soon becomes the cartel's best mule. It becomes clear that Earl is doing this for more than just the cash. Maybe he just wants to feel valued again. Maybe he thinks if he spreads the cash around enough, his family will forget about what a lousy father and husband he's been.
Operating parallel to this story is that of Colin Bates, a hotshot DEA agent played by Bradley Cooper. He's chasing the legend of "Tata," this mule who transports more coke than any other, is utterly unpredictable and some say uncatchable. Of course, the secret to Earl's unpredictability is that he's an amiable old codger who likes to stop at the best eating joints, have a beer, hobnob with the locals, help a family change a flat tire, and whatnot.
It's fun and games for a while, but both story threads have the pressure ratcheted up. Earl sees the (by their standards) benevolent head of the cartel (Andy Garcia) replaced with some sterner types who insist on laying down the law.
At the same time, Bates is striking out in his months-long quest to nail Tata, and his boss (Laurence Fishburne) is getting ready to pull the plug. Bates and his partner (Michael Peñ) are putting in a lot of hours and time away from home, which places pressure on their family lives, in much the same way Earl did when he was a younger man.
"The Mule" is based on the true story of Leo Sharp, who was arrested in 2011. It's a much catchier name than Earl Stone, so I don't know why the filmmakers changed it. Nick Schenk wrote the screenplay based on a newspaper article by Sam Dolnick.
The first half of the film is almost a comedy, which turns towards tragedy in the second. Instead of driving by himself, Earl is shadowed by Mexican gangsters
to make sure he stays on schedule. Of course, they stand out like a sore
thumb in the places where Earl traipses.
"Two beaners
in a bowlful of crackers," Earl jokes when his handlers ask him why all the white people are staring at them when they stop at a roadside BBQ joint. Earl is 90 and fought in World War II, and is past the point of being PC, or even knowing what PC is.
He also has encounters with a lesbian motorcycle gang, "Dykes on Bikes," and is corrected by an African-American family when he calls them "Negroes." These aren't contentious confrontations; Earl is friendly and his smiles are returned, his help accepted. It's almost like a fantasy safari for Trump voters.
It's an enjoyable movie, but I'm not sure what the point of it all is. Earl talks constantly about how young people need to put down their phones, eat some good food and enjoy life. This Earl does, including carrying on with young women when he stops at motels or is invited to a cartel party. He looks pretty good for 90, but I think the bundles of cash might have something to do with it.
War films don’t generally score much of an impact in movie theaters these days. Along with Westerns, they’ve fallen out of favor as our culture increasingly favors hipster dweebs over old-school examples of manliness. I’m closer to dweeb than cowboy myself, but I can still recognize the loss in our cinematic richness.
“12 Strong” stars Christopher Hemsworth and Michael Shannon in the true story of the very first ground troops sent into Afghanistan after 9/11. Those references you heard at the time about soldiers on horses taking on Russian-made tanks? That was these guys.
It’s a rousing war picture that also has some historical lessons to impart about culture clash. The Taliban enemy, and to a large extent even their nascent allies, came from a tradition of embracing an honorable death, but also of lots of infighting and internal strife. The Horse Soldiers, as they came to be known, were Army special forces, spent as much time preventing civil war as taking on the terrorists.
Hemsworth is Mitch Nelson, captain of his elite team, who has a lot of sense but not much in-combat experience. Shannon plays Cal Spencer, the grizzled noncom who acts as his right-hand man and subtle mentor.
Rounding out the cast are Michael Peña as another savvy veteran, William Fitchtner as the ops commander and Rob Riggle -- best known for his comedy but a real-life Marine -- as Nelson’s direct superior.
The movie’s a bit too long (most are these days, it seems), with director Nicolai Fuglsig growing a little too enamored of lengthy battles in which bullets fly and cameras whiz around the action. Still, it’s a solid war movie in a time when such things are rarely even made, let alone any good.
Perhaps owing to its middling box office performance, the film is being issued on video with a modicum of bonus features. Available only on the Blu-ray combo pack, they consist of two featurettes:
“12 Strong: The Making of an Impossible Mission”
“Monumental Effort: Building America’s Response Monument”
"12 Strong" is the true story of the Horse Soldiers, the nickname given to U.S. Army special forces soldiers and intelligence officers who were the very first to fight the terrorist enemies in the aftermath of 9/11. Their actions, which were reported at the time in fall 2001, would seem on its face like a bunch of Hollywood hooey: literally riding horses against Soviet-made tanks and artillery.
It really happened, so here is the now-declassified cinematic version of events. Starring Chris Hemsworth and Michael Shannon, it's an invigorating war action/drama that shows how modern soldiers had to relearn their craft in order to take the fight to an enemy with a literally medieval mindset, embracing rather than fearing death, while having to rely on new allies who were often more interested in fighting ancient tribal grudges.
At 140 minutes, the movie is rather too long, particularly the action scenes that make up the bulk of the second half. Director Nicolai Fuglsig ("Exfil") knows how to stage military mayhem well, but not when to cut it off. Sequences often devolve into repetitive snatches of an American killing three Taliban with three bullets, while they themselves avoid thousands of round shot at them. Hemsworth plays Mitch Nelson, the grounded but unseasoned captain of the best squad, part of Task Force Dagger, while Shannon is Cal Spencer, the grizzled chief warrant officer who acts as his right-hand man. When their team is first deployed in Afghanistan, the Northern Alliance warlord they've been assigned to assist, General Dostum (Navid Negahban), at first assumes the older man is the leader, because he has the "killer eyes" the younger captain lacks.
The rest of the team falls into the usual rogues gallery blend of background players, where you get just enough information to learn their faces and personalities without every really getting to know their names. Michael Peña plays Sam, another one of the senior guys on the crew. William Fichtner and Rob Riggle play the two colonels overseeing the mission from afar. That's a pretty solid cast, and I was a little disappointed the script -- by Ted Tally and Peter Craig, based on a book by Doug Stanton -- doesn't give them more to do than spout the usual grim/heroic lines and fire a bunch of guns. It's the first movie I've seen Michael Shannon in where I thought that any number of actors could do what he did. How much of what's depicted is literally true, I cannot say. Certainly the names and specific events have been changed around.
The basic mission remains the same, though, to fight elements of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban through a succession of villages up the mountain pass of Tiangi Gap, with the goal of capturing the pivotal city of Mazar-i-Sharif before the winter snows make the route impassable. Officially their job is to stay in the back and call in air strikes, but of course they soon get into the midst of the firefight.
If it were a Western -- which, in a way, it kind of is -- "12 Strong" would be what we call an old-fashioned "oater": straightforward, effective, full of gunplay, not especially original. But like the men it heralds, it gets the job done.
