Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Clint Eastwood
Starring: Clint Eastwood, Bradley Cooper, Manny Montana, Taissa
Farmiga, Alison Eastwood, Michael Peña, Andy Garcia, Laurence
Fishburne, Clifton Collins Jr., Dianne Wiest
As a naive kid, I believed Clint Eastwood was the oldest man in the world when he made Unforgiven in 1992. A postmodern deconstruction of the western genre, that film seemed a summation of Eastwood's stellar career, and it felt like he was bowing out on a high. Cut to 27 years later and Eastwood has directed no less than 21 movies in the intervening years, with no signs of stopping at the ripe age of 88. As an actor however, Eastwood has largely called time on his career, with only three roles in the last decade. If The Mule represents his final turn in front of the camera (nope, he's starring in the upcoming Cry Macho), it means the icon will be going out with one of his finest performances.
Desperate for cash, Earl follows up the lead and finds himself in a garage with three gun-wielding Mexican gang members. His job is to drive a package from Texas to Illinois, where he will be paid in cash. The drive goes off without a hitch, and Earl is surprised by the large wad of notes left in his truck as payment. After a few more runs, Earl has raised enough money to buy his home back from the bank, reopen his local Veterans' hall and purchase a brand spanking new truck. He still can't get his head around texting though.
Eastwood might be the most famous Republican filmmaker, but the libertarian politics of his films don't always tow that party's line, arguing the case for such conservative bugbears as euthanasia (Million Dollar Baby), gay rights (J. Edgar), racial harmony (Invictus) and feminism (Sudden Impact). The Mule is a surprisingly damning condemnation of American prejudice, much harder on the racism of cops than Spike Lee's BlacKkKlansman, which let the boys in blue considerably off the hook with its "few bad cops" message. Eastwood makes it clear that racism is inherent in American law enforcement, with even otherwise wholesome cops like Bates and Trevino lazily falling back on racial profiling in their quest to identify the mule. While staking out the motel Earl is staying in, they pick out a guest as a potential suspect for no other reason than being black, while Earl hobbles around in plain sight. Elsewhere, a hispanic man is pulled over for driving a truck that matches Earl's, imploring the police not to shoot him - "This is statistically the most dangerous five minutes of my life!" Stopping off for pulled pork with two Mexican handlers in tow, Earl uses his white privilege to defuse a tense situation when a xenophobic cop starts harassing the Mexicans for no reason. Every authority figure in The Mule is a bigot, whether they're aware of it or not. And of course, being a 90-year-old white man, Earl isn't exactly the most progressive individual, though his bigotry comes from a place of institutional ignorance.
After a few recent duds, Eastwood has returned with both his most entertaining and most well observed movie since 2004's Million Dollar Baby. Don't make the mistake with Eastwood that The Mule's DEA antagonists make of writing off Earl for his advanced age; as a director, Eastwood proves here that he's as sharp as ever.
The Mule is on Netflix UK/ROI now.