WHAT’S IT ABOUT
Broke, alone and facing foreclosure on his business, Earl Stone takes a job as a drug courier for a Mexican cartel. His immediate success leads to easy money and a larger shipment that soon draws the attention of hard-charging DEA agent Colin Bates. When Earl’s past mistakes start to weigh heavily on his conscience, he must decide whether to right those wrongs before law enforcement and cartel thugs catch up to him.
MoviesInMo
So a movie about an old White guy stuck in his ways, running drugs for a cartel. With that type of description, The Mule should have been a comedy. It wasn’t a funny movie, but it also wasn’t a good movie. It was a slow-moving half-true story about a drug mule. The real guy was Leo Sharp. A WWII vet, a horticulturist, and, of course, a drug mule for the Sinaloa Drug Cartel. He was caught in 2011, after over ten years transporting thousands of pounds of cocaine. At that time, he was 87 years old, only spent a year in prison due to health issues, and died in December 2016 at the age of 92. In the film, Clint Eastwood’s character is Earl Stone. A Korean War vet, and horticulturist that transported cocaine for a Mexican drug cartel. Earl made twelve runs and was caught in 2017. I’m not sure why they made so many changes from the real story because the subtle differences they made were unnecessary. The real story might have been more interesting because as good as the actors were, The Mule kept trying to deliver a true dramatic feel and continually fell flat when given a chance to shine. I like Clint Eastwood even if he always looks like he smelled a fart but The Mule is a fart and now that look he has is justified.
OUR RATING – A SMELT IT AND DEALT IT 5.5
MEDIA
- Genre – Drama
- Street date
- Digital – March 19th 2019
- DVD/Blu-Ray/4K – April 2nd 2019
- Video – 1080p
- Screen size – 2.40:1
- Sound – English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, English 5.1 Descriptive Audio, French 5.1 Dolby Digital, Spanish 5.1 Dolby Digital
- Subtitles – English SDH, French, Spanish
Extras
- The Making of The Mule: Nobody Runs Forever (HD 10:59) – A standard, but entertaining, look at how the movie came to the big screen, with comments from Director/Producer/Star Clint Eastwood, as well as Producers Kristina Rivera and Tim Moore, Screenwriter Nick Schenk, Production Designer Kevin Ishioka, Camera Operator/2nd Unit Director Stephen S. Campanelli, Supervising Location Manager Patrick Mignano, Property Master Mike Sexton, Costume Designer Deborah Hopper, and stars Andy Garcia, Ignacio Serricchio, Alison Eastwood, Laurence Fishburne, Michael Peña, and Bradley Cooper.
- Toby Keith “Don’t Let the Old Man In” Music Video (HD 2:54) – A few years back, there was an interview with Eastwood where someone asked him how he keeps his energy up and remains so busy given his advanced years. His reply was, “Don’t let the old in.” Well, that must have caught the eye of someone (perhaps Clint himself) involved with this movie, as the film’s end credits feature this Toby Keith song. This is the music video for it, featuring footage from the film.