Clint Eastwood directs and takes the lead role in this tale of a fun-loving elderly man who falls on hard times and becomes an unlikely drug mule for a Mexican cartel…

Director: Clint Eastwood

Screenwriter: Nick Schenk

Inspired by: The New York Times Magazine article “The Sinaloa Cartel’s 90-Year-Old Drug Mule” by Sam Dolnick, published 11 June 2014. (https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/15/magazine/the-sinaloa-cartels-90-year-old-drug-mule.html)

Synopsis:

*Spoilers* Earl Stone (Clint Eastwood) is an elderly horticulturalist who has spent his life neglecting his family while clocking up thousands of miles driving across the country to conventions to show off his widely-admired daylily hybrids (with buds that bloom for just a single day) and enjoying life to the full. When his farm falls into the bank’s hands, Earl finds himself in a hole, until a chance meeting gets him work doing what he loves, driving. Only it’s delivering drugs for a Mexican cartel. Earl does what he’s told and asks no questions as he ferries drugs from El Paso to Illinois. He gets well paid for his efforts and quickly becomes the gang’s go-to ‘gringo’. DEA agent Colin Bates (Bradley Cooper), who is investigating the cartel, sets about tracking down its top mule, who has been dubbed ‘El Tata’ (or ‘Grandfather’). Earl manages to reconnect with his estranged family before Bates catches up to him. In court, Earl eschews his defence lawyer and pleads guilty. He ends up tending flowers in the prison’s garden.

Analysis:

*Spoilers* With a strong cast, Eastwood at the helm, and compelling real-life source material, The Mule has all the makings of a modern classic. Unfortunately, the whole turns out to be somewhat less than the sum of its parts. The problem is the story never really gets going, with the proceedings rolling along under Eastwood’s languid directorial style, with a bit of tension here and there, a touch of humour, and some soul searching.

For much of the film, we are taken on a scenic road-trip with Earl, as he tucks into pulled pork sandwiches, helps a young family fix a flat tyre, and sings along to Dean Martin and Willie Nelson on the radio, all the while toting hundreds of kilos of cocaine around in his truck, with the DEA closing in on the operation. Along the way, we get the obligatory age-related scenes, in which Earl decries the internet and mobile phones, gets baffled by the concept of texting, and grapples with a modern world in which women form biker gangs and black people balk at being referred to as ‘negroes’. It’s all watchable, if pretty pedestrian stuff.

Like the Robert Redford vehicle, The Old Man and the Gun (2018), the film is a leisurely character study of an unlikely elderly criminal who gets brought down by a committed law enforcement agent. However, while Redford’s Forrest Tucker was a life-long criminal who got a kick out of his illegal activities, Earl is a law-abiding Korean War veteran, who’s proud of his clean driving record. His later-life career as a key member of a drug cartel is therefore a little hard to believe – not least the random way in which he gets involved in the first place. And unlike Casey Affleck’s Detective John Hunt in The Old Man, Cooper’s DEA Agent Bates has no real skin in the game; he just wants to make his mark in Chicago before moving on to better things. While we get some insight into Hunt’s personal life and mentality, we know little about Bates, except that he’s as neglectful of his family as Earl; something revealed through a scene in which the two men unwittingly meet, and Bates chides himself for missing his wedding anniversary. When Bates catches up to Earl later and arrests him, there is a touching scene between them, but, overall, the mutually respectful cat-and-mouse relationship is not established and Bates’ interest in Earl is fleeting.

One of the main issues with The Mule is that Earl himself is a curious and somewhat problematic character. On one hand, he’s a gentle soul who loves his daylilies and has regrets about how he treated his family. On the other, he seamlessly slides into the role of hot-shot drug mule without a second thought. He doesn’t blink when his Mexican crew puts packages in his truck and gives him a burner phone. He also quickly gets up to speed with requirements of his illicit role, thinking on his feet when a traffic cop’s sniffer dog gets a little close to the stash, and making the most of the envelopes of cash he finds in his truck after a drop. Earl is also apparently quite the ladies’ man; something made abundantly clear when he entertains a couple of buxom hookers while partying at the cartel boss’ palatial Playboy mansion-style Mexican estate. This all a bit far-fetched (even though it’s inspired by a true story), and while the scenes in which he tries to re-establish the connection with his ex-wife and daughter are effective, the underlying character inconsistencies make for an uneven narrative.

This is amplified by some of the plot choices. For example, when Earl misses his scheduled drop to spend time with his dying ex-wife, you might think that when his cartel catches up to him, he’d be destined to be buried underneath his lilies with a bullet in his head. However, the next time we see Earl, he’s a little banged up but still walking around. This is okay, except the story has already established that anyone going against the cartel winds up dead, so giving Earl a free pass to go AWOL with valuable product seems a little off. Likewise, after reconnecting with his daughter following his ex-wife’s death, Earl promptly abandons her again by pleading guilty to all charges in court. She tearfully sends him off with a promise to visit. Again, this is fine, but smacks a little of tying everything up with a neat bow. Indeed, we leave Earl where we found him, peacefully tending his flowers.

On the plus side, we have the indestructible Eastwood (who apparently had to slow himself down to play the less spry Earl) in the driver’s seat. We also have an (arguably under-used) supporting cast sprinkled with award-winners and nominees. Not only Cooper, but Dianne Wiest as Earl’s ex-wife and Laurence Fishburne as Cooper’s boss. There’s also Andy Garcia as the cartel’s jovial boss, Michael Peña as Cooper’s partner and Alison Eastwood as Earl’s estranged daughter. Also strong is Ignacio Serricchio as Earl’s handler, who gets increasingly angered at the old man’s laidback approach to the serious business of being a drug mule.

A further way in which The Mule bears comparison with The Old Man (and, to a certain extent, The Irishman (2019)) is that it is a mediation on age and passing time. It is this aspect of the story that arguably works the best. The constant references to Earl’s age and his ex-wife’s demise are all constant reminders that time is catching up to him. The film even ends with the Toby Keith song, Don’t Let the Old Man In. Like Forrest Tucker and Frank Sheeran, in the end, all that’s left for Earl Stone to do is to do is look back, both with regret that the good times are over, but also sadness over some of the choices he made.

Notes on the adaptation

The Mule is billed as being ‘inspired by’ Sam Dolnick’s 2014 New Times Magazine feature on the Sinaloa cartel (which was headed up by the infamous El Chapo). Eastwood’s character of Earl Stone is a fictionalised version of Leo Sharp (aka the real ‘El Tata’), an unlikely “urban legend”, who transported huge quantities of cocaine from the Mexican border to Detroit and beyond for a decade, before he was picked up by DEA agents, headed by Special Agent Jeff Moore.

Dolnick’s article details a wide-ranging investigation into the cartel, which ended in multiple arrests. Sharp himself was sentenced to three years in prison. Throughout the trial, there was a question over whether he was coerced into driving for the cartel or was a willing participant. There was also an issue over his health, with assertions that he had dementia. All in all, it makes for compelling reading and offers plenty for a screenwriter to get their teeth into.

As we’ve discussed before, when it comes to adapting material for the screen, certain departures from the source story are always necessary. The reasons for these changes are usually driven by a combination of narrative requirements and practical considerations. Key decisions that need to be made early on in the process are the overall tone of the story and the focus of the plot.

Reading the source article, it’s clear that with The Mule, the filmmakers could have gone the route of telling the tale from the point of view of law enforcement, which tracked the cartel for months, in what was Detroit’s largest cocaine operation. That would potentially have made for an exciting crime thriller, in the vein of Heat (1995).

Instead, screenwriter Schenk and Eastwood were drawn to bringing a more personal story to the screen. So, while the investigation is an important part of the narrative, it takes a backseat to the unlikely senior ‘gringo’ who made the whole operation possible.

Go further:

Take a look at the trailer for The Mule: