The Mule

I find no comfort in watching an aging superstar slowly burn out into the emptiness of black hole it becomes. It’s once gleaming and powerful self with highlights such as Unforgiven, Flags of our Father and American Sniper, reduced to the amateurism of 15:17 to Paris and now his latest directorial film, The Mule.

The star that once shined so brightly for Clint Eastwood, from generation to generation has faded away and in its place a darkened outer shell of what once was a beautiful eye.

We’re now getting a perspective of this world through the eyes of a nearly 90-year-old Eastwood who also plays the lead character Earl Stone, marking his first on screen performance since 2008’s Gran Torino.

Like his off screen politics there’s sense of a conservative lean, which you would expect from his character, who’s a politically incorrect former traveling salesman who failed to keep up with the modern modes of business such as using the internet or a cell phone.

Also probably didn’t help that he’s into boozing and prostitutes. But come on? What did you expect? Dirty men simply graduate toward dirty old men in this world.

Due to his business failing, house be repossessed by the bank and his family disowning him, Earl is desperate for money but gets a chance opportunity ‘to drive’ and so he ventures into the drug trafficking ring. From the small suburb of Peoria, Illinois to the ready to move border town of El Paso he is now a mule for the Mexican Cartel.

The road he travels never really brings any thrills or excitement and it’s much of what you’d expect from an old man on a solo road trip would be.

Singing to Sinatra on the radio, pulling off for pecans, bringing in more prostitutes by the pair to his motel; basically the usual with the small exception of travelling with millions of dollars worth of cocaine.

But it’s his nonchalant interactions, especially with people of color that is jarring at first but as the story goes along becomes a bit enduring to his character.

“Why are all these people looking at us?” Two Mexican Cartel members say to Earl at some heartland dine-in restaurant. “Well it’s because there’s two Beaners in a bowl full of crackers.”

He’s a straight shooter and tells it as it is, which is actually kind of refreshing to a degree in our modern world of political correctness.

However, outside of Eastwood’s performance, which is good, the rest of the cast and story is predicated on 2-dimensional characters, over the top stereotypes that somehow maneuver in a rudderless story lacking drama, nuance or intrigue.

Despite appearances by Michael Pena, Lawrence Fishburne and even Bradley Cooper as the lead DEA agent out to apprehend Earl, the performances fall flat and drag on (probably that whole one take and move on thing Eastwood is known for).

There’s a glimmer of hope from the trailer that you might get that intense buildup of cop tracking down this mastermind criminal, a la Pacino and De Niro in Heat but there’s none of that. Just cordial blue collared Americans doing their job and then owning up to their crimes and simply moving on.

No stand off, no drawn out action. It just fades out, reminding us that once was can never always be the same. Time moves on whether you’re ready for it or not.