The Mule – 2018, drama, thriller, USA
the mule subtitles
- Director: Clint Eastwood
- Cast: Clint Eastwood, Bradley Cooper, Manny Montana, Taissa Farmiga, Andy Garcia
- Premiere: February 28, 2019
- Time: 1 hour 56 minutes
- scenario: Nick Schenck
- premiere: 12/14/2018 (world)
- film distribution: Karo Premier
- production: Warner Bros
About the film
The plot is based on an article published by the New York Times in June 2014. The film is dedicated to the story of an elderly and lonely World War II veteran Earl Stone (Clint Eastwood), who was forced to take any part-time jobs in order to make ends meet.
Soon, the hero is offered to become a chauffeur, and Earl himself does not suspect that he was hired as a drug courier for the Mexican Sinaloa cartel. Things are going so well that Stone is entrusted with more and more cargo for transportation, and financial problems no longer threaten him.
However, Earl begins to be watched by drug control agent Colin Bates (Bradley Cooper), and at the same time, he becomes a target for his competitor.
An old man without a gun – Review
Clint Eastwood starring for the first time in ten years in his own film – an energetic dramedy about drug cartels, cops, and the importance of family
Earl Stone was once a well-known local florist, but now almost no one needs his craft. He had a quarrel with his family for a long time – he devoted too much time to work – of which only the granddaughter wants to keep in touch with him.
Just before her wedding, one of the groom’s acquaintances makes Earl an offer, which, of course, you can refuse, but you don’t really want to. He invites the old man – who has never received a car ticket in his entire life – just drive from town to town.
Earl doesn’t really care what his Mexican friends will put in this car. But it worries police officer Colin Bates, who was just transferred to Chicago to help cover the local drug cartel. The work of a director is, as you know, not for young people: most of them only reach their full capacity by the age of forty, or even fifty.
And yet the elderly in this profession are also not too happy. Towards the end of their lives, many excellent authors began to mutter under their breath, repeat themselves, or even go crazy. Clint Eastwood is a particularly interesting case in this respect.
His directorial handwriting began to emerge only by the seventh decade, and he blossomed as a director and only in the middle of the 2000s – when he was well over seventy. And now almost 90-year-old Eastwood suddenly decided to open new creative horizons for himself – if not now, then when.
Last year, his experiment was quite formalistic – he directed ” Train to Paris “, where real hero soldiers played themselves. The film, however, was hardly heroic: for most of the timing, the characters there chatted about all sorts of trifles and personal troubles.
Few people appreciated this specific approach, and in the new film, Eastwood changed the manipulation of form to a frank game with content – a movie that at first glance seems to be the ideological brother of his own ” Gran Torino ” (they even have one screenwriter, and the main characters are veterans of the same and the same war) turns out to be a funny and gentle “indie” about family, love and other wonderful things.
The mood and central idea of ”the mule subtitles” are slightly reminiscent of “The Old Man with a Pistol ” – another film of 2018, where the classic Hollywood cowboy had fun beyond his age.
True, Eastwood – unlike Radford – stands here on both sides of the camera, he himself puts himself into the equation, and does not leave the image at the mercy of someone else’s romanticization. If the “Old Man” acted softly and in a half-whisper, then “the mule subtitles”, quite in the spirit of its creator, beats loudly and on the spot.
Clint – like the main character – knows that he can get away with blatant melodramatics, and sharp tonal shifts, and languid gazing at female bodies, and even, oh my God, a forbidden word was spoken right from the screen in N.
Because he is already old, because he’s from a different era because he’s Clint, fuck him, Eastwood after all. At such an age and with such a cultural weight, it is possible to talk common truths out loud – the main thing is not to forget at the same time to be sincere, as interesting as possible, or at least funny.
The “the mule subtitles” has no problems with any of these qualities. Eastwood understands his position very well and sometimes frankly scoffs. For example, he mounts the most poignant monologue with how the main character is looking for a detachment of Mexican thugs – so that later it will be very painful to kill him.
“Drug Courier” generally works on contrasts: excessive drama next to a situational comedy, openly genre thriller scenes against the background of general lightness. The dangerous world of drug trafficking turns into a playground for him: Earl’s optimism and spontaneity (it is not for nothing that they say that old people are almost like children) soften even the most severe gangsters.
Must Read: Other Cinema Article
In “the mule subtitles” – despite the seemingly acute topic – there are almost no negative characters. Ambitious cop Bradley Cooper (he would often be distracted from Lady Gaga and his own narcissism) and his funny partner Michael Peña, their boss Laurence Fishburne, hilarious Andy Garcia in the role of drug lord – they are all cute characters and, in fact, rather comic.They are part of a big game that works well exactly as long as people do not appear in it who do not know how to enjoy the process. It is in this that “the mule subtitles” sees the main evil: not in drugs, not in cops, and not in Earl’s terrible selfishness, from which he is so trying to wash it off. And in people who take it all too seriously.
