THE MULE (O-RVZ MOVIE REVIEW)

The Mule is a crime drama film starring and directed by Clint Eastwood. The film also stars Bradley Cooper, Laurence Fishburne and Michael Peña and is based from a true story of a 80-year old man named “Earl Stone” (Leo Sharp is the real name in which the character is based on) played by Clint Eastwood who worked as a drug mule from a big Mexican drug cartel who transports cocaine load from one place to the drop location.

The plot might think you that this will be a very thrilling film that involves drugs and cartel, however, this film is heavily lean on to the main character’s dilemma and the emotional aspect of that. Earl Stone, the central character of this film, is a war veteran who has a flower business and the movie starts with a very scenic scene with him tending his flowers for some flower award ceremony. This scene already sets-up the character's big dilemma in which he chose to stay on his flower award ceremony rather than going to his own daughter's wedding. After this, the movie jumps after 12 years in which he became estranged with his own family and his flower business has become bankrupt. This opens up to the plot of the film in which an unknown man recruits him for a drug mule job. The weird thing about this film is that at times, it feels like a road trip film while he goes deliver the drugs to the drop location. Everything seems to be working fine while he goes driving and he successfully delivered those packages and at the same time, he became fully loaded with money. It's enjoyable at first but then it gets repetitive and you kinda don't know which this movie is heading into. Then to the second half of the film, due to some unprecedented situation, it then shifted to a darker tone in which you could already feel that this man is indeed working for some big drug cartel who doesn't fuck around if the job is not successfully done. You could tell that this man might be killed at any moment and the first half of the film never really addressed that kind of scenario. He was just like a happy-go-lucky guy who delivered some drugs and in return gets money out of it. I like that the movie also goes back to the character's personal conflict of it as it also sets the character to a very emotional path. The performances were just fine. I didn't see any particular performances that felt to me as a standout. Bradley Cooper was also in this film but he plays a secondary character who doesn't have too much to play on this. There were transitions and edits of the film felt to me that were out of place or were awkwardly done. It's a miminal issue for me as it doesn't really affect my entire viewing on it but it's quite noticeable if you are able to pick it up.

OVERALL

THE MULE is more like a drama film than a crime or thriller film. The first half of the film was enjoyable yes, but I was expecting it to be a bit darker. I did like the story of Earl Stone of how he became a drug mule. I also like the personal story of him trying to restore his relationship to his family and at the same time trying to not get killed by the drug cartel. The movie doesn't really have anything special that I can take note but it's still a good movie with a tragic and fulfilling story that I was able to enjoy.