The Mule was pretty good

I enjoyed this very much. It was like a cross between The Walk and Heat and also some American Made.

This movie was a pleasant surprise. Shows that Clint can still carry a film and there were many unexpected twists to the story. It was also unexpectedly poignant if you take into account the scope of Clint Eastwood's career. My Dad and I enjoyed it a ton.

RobotTheLiving



That's nice to hear as I am hoping I am underestimating it a bit as the most recently released movie I gave a 10/10 was Eastwood's 'Gran Torino (2008)' and I am hoping for some magic with The Mule (2018) but I am not expecting it even though I feel it's got a decent chance of hitting a 7/10+ for me which would still make it among My Favorite Movies if it pulled that off which is currently 188 movies out of the 2,225+ total movies I have seen.

but if it gets a 8 or higher from me then that will be a solid surprise. given my impression of it from the commercials I think it's got a decent chance to stand out (stand out as in me scoring it a 7/10+).

p.s. for the record... only eight movies managed to pull off a 10/10 from me. so it's a rare feat and I don't restrict ratings on movies either as I simply don't enjoy movies to THAT level much in general.

... good connection. The films are very different, of course, but there is a certain similarity. 

We saw it today. Enjoyed it quite a bit. He did good.

I thought it was a flawed yet interesting film. One of the better ones out of his recent filmography.

6.5/10

Having viewed The Mule twice more, I would emphasize how engrossing the film happens to be—how the viewer feels like he (in my case) is right there with the actors. Here are some other observations:

*Without ever approaching comedy status, the movie is quite humorous. It is also quietly fatalistic, as perfectly evidenced by the early hotel scene in 2005 where Earl runs across an Internet flower vendor pitching his product and the ease and efficiency offered by his online ordering service. Earl grumbles, "Damn Internet, it ruins everything."
*Being both humorous and fatalistic speaks to the film's textured tone and refined excellence. Similarly, one could consider The Mule both lyrical and tense, humanistic and haunting, intimate and epic. To that last point of irony, The Mule is really about people—unlike most movies that tackle this subject matter, even "bad guys" become humanized—yet it offers this epic feel, this traversing of time and space, encountering different kinds of folks and places and sowing cross-cultural fertilization. Probably for that reason, someone that I attended The Mule with stated that she was reminded of Eastwood's legendary Western The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976). 

*In this regard, too, The Mule offers plenty of de facto commentary (most of it subtle and ambiguous) about race, stereotypes, and police profiling. 

*The Mule is a great road movie with a real feel for the spaces and places and quiet sounds of "middle America"—mom-and-pop diners and Waffle House, commercial garages and motels, VFW halls and outhouses, back roads and freeways, verdant fields and expansive plains, white sands and vast skies. This sense of environs is precisely what If Beale Street Could Talk, for instance, lacks. 

*The Mule is probably the year's best film in terms of incorporating diegetic (source) music. It is an eclectic, organic, and historical mix: blue-eyed soul and jazz, country and Tejano polka, Spiral Starecase and Dean Martin and Willie Nelson and Toby Keith. It works brilliantly, always complementing and never overwhelming the story. I noted in another thread that director Robert Zemeckis had done a fine job of incorporating popular music in Welcome to Marwen, but The Mule is that much better in that regard. Frankly, I am hard-pressed to recall a film that uses diegetic popular music better than The Mule, especially given the range of genres and the syncretic blend. The musical choices are diverse yet fit together perfectly. 

*Eastwood's commitment to his character is naturalistic and complete. He expresses so much in this role just through his eyes, which often change quickly and suddenly, revealing a remarkable range of emotion yet one that he internalizes. It is, perhaps, veteran screen acting at is most venerable. 

*The supporting roles are also exquisitely acted, most notably Bradley Cooper, Andy Garcia in a colorful part that he handles masterfully, and Alison Eastwood (Clint's real-life daughter, who plays his daughter in the film). But even the anonymous actors playing the Hispanic drug dealers prove highly effective. These types of parts usually come across as two-dimensional, at best, in movies, but in The Mule, they manage to be three-dimensional and nuanced. 

*The film's cinematography (by Yves Bélanger, an Eastwood newcomer) is also notable, with some sharp, beautiful contrasts yet also a capacity to capture different types of outdoor lighting that seem to vary with the film's subtly changing moods and resonances. Eastwood's camera is full of life yet always purposeful and quite graceful in both its movements and the filmmaking decisions that it reflects. 

*I would have nominated The Mule for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Original Screenplay, Best Cinematography, and perhaps Best Editing. Of course, it received no nominations. If the milieu of drug-dealing emanating from Mexico proved too politically incorrect for the Academy (the body that chose Coco over Loving Vincent last year for Best Animated Feature), perhaps its members should take a closer look at the film's capacity for humanization and empathy. For instance, in one scene at a Missouri diner, Earl's Mexican handlers have to deal with the discomfort of being suspiciously eyed by an array of white patrons—and then being accosted by a Missouri patrol officer without cause (even if the men are, indeed, criminals). Earl helps them through those situations, partly because he is working with them, of course, but partly because of this sense of common humanity that builds between them and accrues throughout the movie. That common humanity also transcends the line between cop and criminal, as embodied by the Cooper and Eastwood characters. 

*Last week, I viewed  both Holmes & Watson and The Mule on Tuesday evening and then I managed to see four films on Thursday: Ben Is Back ("good"), If Beale Street Could Talk ("good"), Mary Queen of Scots ("good/very good"), and Creed II ("mediocre"). (Incidentally, that is the third time that I have viewed four movies in the theater in one day, the other occasions coming in November 2015 and early May 2016). But even after seeing the four films on Thursday, most of which I liked quite a bit, the one that I kept coming back to was The Mule from two days earlier.  

I liked it a lot. his best since Gran Turino. At his age the still draw people to CINEMAS IS AMAZING. In a class of his own.