The Mule (2018) * * *

Directed by:  Clint Eastwood

Starring:  Clint Eastwood, Bradley Cooper, Dianne Wiest, Michael Pena, Alison Eastwood, Taissa Farmiga, Laurence Fishburne, Andy Garcia, Ignacio Serricchio

After the disastrous The 15:17 to Paris from earlier this year, Clint Eastwood returns to his superior filmmaking form in The Mule, which casts Eastwood himself as the titular octogenarian drug mule.    Even if The Mule doesn't reach the emotional heft of Eastwood films like Sully, Million Dollar Baby, Unforgiven, and the underrated True Crime, it still works amusingly and touchingly. 

Eastwood circles around to a theme similar to Sully (2016):  Even all the technology in the world is no substitute for experience.    Eastwood's Earl Stone is a careful driver who has never had a ticket or been stopped by police.    This and his financial desperation after the closing of his daylily farm makes him an ideal candidate to run kilos of cocaine from Texas to Illinois on a monthly basis for a Mexican drug cartel.    Earl never thought his life would take such a bizarre turn.    The Mule opens in 2005, with Earl attending a flower convention where he is the life of the party.    The convention occurs the same day as his daughter's wedding, and Earl chooses the convention over the wedding, leading to his daughter not speaking to him for over twelve years.    Earl comes to an oft-expressed realization that he put work above family, something which his long-suffering (now ex) wife Mary (Wiest) concluded a long time ago.  

Earl at first doesn't realize he is transporting drugs, probably because he doesn't want to know, but these deliveries net him more money than he's ever seen, and allows him to pay for his loyal granddaughter's school tuition and repairs to the local VFW.    Things are going well.   Earl is delivering the goods and the cartel boss Laton (Garcia) is happy, even though Earl tends to make stops to visit old friends and eat more often than he should.    Laton is quite reasonable and understanding as drug cartel bosses go, which leads to unforeseen plot turns which endanger Earl's life.    Laton is soon replaced by a tougher boss, who demands deliveries on time and sticking to the assigned routes...or else.

The shipments are tracked by DEA agent Colin Bates (Cooper), who wants to deliver a big bust so he can be promoted.    But Earl unwittingly manages to elude Bates as Bates tracks a black pickup track prowling the highways between Texas and Illinois.     Bates uses plenty of money and resources to track Earl, much to the consternation of his boss (Fishburne) who wants to see high-profile arrests at the end of all of this spending.    There are some contrivances which allow Earl and Colin to talk frankly about family in a Waffle House, with neither knowing who the other is, but these scenes work anyway.  

Eastwood still commands the screen as only he can, even though he is showing his age and his tall, lean frame is hunched over.    He gives Earl the right of amounts of crustiness, knowhow, experience, and even an ability to still learn and grow.    His scenes of reconciliation with his family (we know the movie can't end with Earl still being estranged from them) provide the emotional gravitas the film requires, even if such a detour may cost him his life.    I also enjoyed his interactions with his "handler" Julio (Serricchio), who is clearly miserable having to babysit Earl on his runs.  

The Mule is "inspired by a true story".   Maybe the story went this way, or maybe it didn't, but Eastwood surely found something in it to inspire him to return to the screen for the first time in six years.   Eastwood will turn 89 in May, and I can't help but wonder how many more times we will see him onscreen or behind the camera.    He is a durable movie star who is also a master director, with very few clunkers in his nearly fifty-year directing career and sixty-plus year acting career.    The Mule represents a story which touched him personally and he needed to tell it as only he can.