The Mule (2018)

At 88 years old, it’s a wonder anyone is calling Clint Eastwood a lazy filmmaker. Despite his notoriety for eschewing multiple takes, Eastwood remains a workhorse, turning out two films this year when his contemporaries are browsing leaflets for retirement homes. The Mule is classic late Eastwood, brisk and deliberate without any pretense of political correctness; one can almost hear Eastwood from behind the camera, growling that any young whippersnappers in hearing range ought to take a look and see how it’s done.

Clint Eastwood stars as workaholic horticulturalist Earl Stone, who’s lost his family after years of throwing himself into his work. Short on cash, Earl finds himself a mule for a drug cartel, shuttling contraband across state lines in his dilapidated pick-up truck. The film is complemented by parallel narratives involving a trio of DEA agents (Bradley Cooper, Michael Peña, and Laurence Fishburne) and the cartel’s decadent leader (Andy Garcia). 

There is something quite methodical about Eastwood’s directing here, an unshowy pacing that doesn’t descend into cliché; there’s little cat-and-mouse in the DEA subplot, for example. It’s a little like Heat if the classic showdown were set in a waffle house – we get there when we get there, with a minimum of glamour. Indeed, if memory serves, the only firearms discharged are on Garcia’s skeet-shooting range. Eastwood is more interested in a character sketch than an octogenarian Sicario, and his cantankerous Earl is very much of a piece with The Mule’s spiritual predecessor Gran Torino.

Gran Torino shares screenwriter Nick Schenk with The Mule, and it shows. Though Earl Stone isn’t as extreme in his prejudice as Walt Kowalski was, Eastwood is unafraid to show him as a sympathetic throwback, someone surprised to meet a lesbian biker gang but more interested in helping repair their engines than in talking down to them. Walt might have thrown a few slurs their way, but Earl greets them cheerily. It seems Earl is more perplexed by texting and the internet than by issues of difference, scratching his head at a generation raised by search engines instead of fathers. As cantankerous yet genial, Eastwood shines, a commanding if doddering heart to the film.

As good as Eastwood is and as well-developed as his character is, I couldn’t help but wish the rest of the movie were as thoroughly fleshed-out. We don’t know very much, for example, about the DEA agents on Earl’s trail. There’s a gesture toward a parallel with Earl about putting work before family, but much of that rings shallow when it’s told but not shown. A throwaway line about Peña’s five children, for one, never materializes into something meaningful because the movie is almost wholly disinterested in anyone else’s interiority. Similarly, the cartel plotline doesn’t land as forcefully as it could because, as even the film’s characters readily admit, it’s hard to tell one drug lord from the next. The only criminal with a semblance of a personality is Garcia as Laton, though I wonder how much of that comes from the page and how much comes from Garcia’s own magnetic, underrated capabilities. 

The Mule is a wholly unique flick, resembling others only tangentially. It’s itinerant in scope and methodical in temperament, quirksome and curious. It can’t be a big-budget blank check, but it’s certainly a creative blank check in that the premise is something so curiously specific that it takes the clout of Clint Eastwood to assemble it in this particular fashion. It’s also a healthy indicator that Eastwood in all his peculiar specificity shows no signs of slowing down, which is for this reviewer a very good thing.

The Mule is rated R for “language throughout and brief sexuality/nudity.” Directed by Clint Eastwood. Written by Nick Schenk. Based on a true story. Starring Clint Eastwood, Bradley Cooper, Taissa Farmiga, Michael Peña, Alison Eastwood, Andy Garcia, Laurence Fishburne, and Dianne Wiest.

New York, I Love You (2009)

It seems that the older I get, the shorter my attention span becomes. Maybe I'm just a jaded filmgoer, maybe today's flicks have run out of pizzazz, or maybe I'm being overdramatic about the whole getting-bored-quickly thing.

At any rate, the beauty of an anthology film is that you only have to invest about ten minutes in any given story. New York, I Love You represents the second in what is apparently a franchise devoted to vignettes about love in important world cities. I was initially only aware of the first "Cities of Love" film, Paris je t'aime (which really ought to be reviewed herein), a film near and dear to the romantic in me.

Before I go any further, I should preface this review by noting that by definition an anthology of any kind is naturally going to be hit or miss. Even Paris je t'aime has a few duds in the bunch. But unfortunately New York, I Love You is primarily a batch of misses with only a few hits. In honor of the anthology format, I'm going to shake things up and review each short separately and then think globally, with the caveat that New York is much more fluid, with its untitled segments intersecting and mingling much more than in Paris.

Director Jiang Wen has the first segment, which stars Hayden Christensen as a thief who picks Andy Garcia's pocket. After being smitten by passer-by Rachel Bilson, Christensen finds out that his quick con on Garcia isn't as easy as it looks. This vignette starts off as a cliche, and the fact that Christensen can't really act doesn't help. But when Garcia and Christensen share the screen, there's something better afoot, with each trying to one-up the other in a game of wills.

Mira Nair directs a more romantic tale about two salespeople (Natalie Portman and Irrfan Khan) married to other people but who fall in love with each other regardless. This segment is unfulfilling, carried by solid acting but lacking any dramatic resolution beyond a clever use of visual language which suggests that these two will always love each other.

Shunji Iwai gets one of the most romantic parts of the film when he brings musician Orlando Bloom together with receptionist Christina Ricci by using Dostoevsky. Props on that one and on creating an ending to their story which feels neither forced nor hackneyed.

Yvan Attal directs two segments, both of which are marked by narrative twists and compelling dialogue which conceals something important beneath the surface. Both are set outside restaurants with their characters on smoke breaks; in the first of these, Ethan Hawke propositions Maggie Q about the inevitability of their romance based on one chance encounter, while in the second Robin Wright Penn plays a jilted wife looking for a change when she meets Chris Cooper and propositions him. The parallel is less pronounced than it seems.

Brett Ratner's segment is my absolute favorite in the film and really the only portion I'd consider rewatching at least once. After breaking up with Blake Lively, Anton Yelchin (one of my new favorites after Charlie Bartlett) agrees to take pharmacist James Caan's daughter to the prom. There's one catch - the daughter (Olivia Thirlby) is in a wheelchair. Don't be fooled; whimsy ensues, and Yelchin's big wish comes true. This one has a fabulous twist; if you only watch one segment, watch this one.

After appearing in a few interstitials, Bradley Cooper co-stars with Drea de Matteo in Allen Hughes's narrator-heavy story about a regrettable one-night stand. This segment flops because it doesn't quite go anywhere, and the ending is abrupt and inconsistent with all but the title of the film.

In the most puzzling segment in the film, Shekhar Kapur directs Anthony Minghella's screenplay about an opera singer (Julie Christie) who returns to a hotel in New York and has separate encounters with two bellhops (John Hurt and Shia LeBeouf). If anyone can make heads or tails of this segment, please let me know what you've decided, as I can't wrap my head around it.

Natalie Portman steps behind the camera to direct a segment about a father's (Carlos Acosta) day in the park with his daughter (Taylor Geare). This segment is cute and fluffy but ultimately forgettable. Portman does a fine job writing and directing it, to the extent that I'd be curious what she can do with longer material.

Fatih Akin directs an empty segment about a painter (Ugur Yucel) who falls for Chinese herbalist Shu Qi and then dies. Burt Young peeks his head in as Yucel's landlord. Huh? That's about all this segment amounts to.

Joshua Marston writes/directs the final full segment, in which Eli Wallach and Cloris Leachman celebrate their 63rd anniversary. The dialogue in this segment is well-played and flows at a leisurely pace, but if you're looking for a conventional narrative you won't find it here. This segment feels very personal and personable, and it's a comfortable way to close the film.

Throughout, Randy Balsmeyer gives transition scenes which feature various characters entering taxicabs together; Emilie Ohana plays a videographer whose role in the film seems only to be to unite the characters. One interstitial in particular, though, is memorable, with Eva Amurri and Justin Bartha quarreling about how they never vacation together.

The DVD includes two deleted vignettes, one of them directed by Scarlett Johannson and starring Kevin Bacon as a New Yorker with a bad case of wanderlust. These deleted scenes, though, have rightfully been omitted, as they are entirely lifeless and protracted. Perhaps Ms. Johannson should stay in front of the camera looking pretty, which she's very good at doing if Iron Man 2 is any indication.

Taken separately, there is a fair amount to like about New York, I Love You, but taken together as a 103 minute film there is a lot of disappointment. The choice to more deliberately blend vignettes - Drea de Matteo visits James Caan's pharmacy, and Chris Cooper meets Maggie Q at a dry cleaner's - makes the film difficult to follow in points; it is often unclear where one story ends and another begins. This trademark of the first film is evident only in the film's most successful segments - Iwai's and especially Ratner's. On the whole, though, Ratner's segment is the only standout feature in an otherwise disappointing follow-up to Paris je t'aime.
New York, I Love You is rated "R for language and sexual content." This being a movie about New York, F-bombs pepper the dialogue; this being a movie about love, sex comes up in conversation and is depicted twice without any nudity to speak of.