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.

Sully (2016)

Clint Eastwood’s directed fourteen films since he turned 70 in 2000, and while he may be better known to audiences as no-nonsense detective “Dirty” Harry Callahan or the grimly determined Man With No Name, he’s cultivating a reputation as a no-nonsense director, as well. Sully is one such exemplar of a tight and effective film with little patience for gaudy thrills or big-budget exploits; instead, the film wisely centers on a confident performance and its director’s admiration for the human dimension of heroism.

Sully is the true story of Chesley “Sully” Sullenberg (played by Tom Hanks), who became an international celebrity after successfully landing U.S. Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River in January 2009. The film explores the snap decisions made by the captain and the subsequent investigation following the water landing. From behind a tremendous mustache, Aaron Eckhart co-stars as Sully’s stalwart first officer Jeff Skiles.

At a little more than ninety minutes, Sully is an impressively tight biopic with an effective grasp on the emotions it wants its audience to have. Even though we know the true story and despite the film’s opening moments confirming the safe landing of US 1549, Eastwood manages a compelling amount of tension in the flashback sequences of the events in the cockpit. In a way, Sully reminds me of the more successful parts of Flight, in which Denzel Washington found himself the captain of a similarly troubled flight.

Of course, Flight succeeded on the shoulders of Denzel’s performance, and Sully lives up to the legend in Tom Hanks’s restrained, subtle turn as Sully. Hanks puts his everyman charm to good use in Sully, allowing us to see more easily the toll that such immediate celebrity takes on an average, good-natured human being. Hanks doesn’t have to tell us he’s shaken or weary or confident in his command decisions; he can do it all with a frown or a turn of his head or the certainty in his voice.

But Sully doesn’t verge as hagiographic as we might expect, reaffirming the decisions made by the captain but without overblowing his legend. Instead, Eastwood spends a surprising amount of time on the heroics of those around Sully – Skiles, the flight deck crew, the police, fire, and ferry workers who got the passengers out of the water. “It only took 24 minutes,” the film reminds us, for New York’s finest to rally together. And for a film that plays the numbers game, so often reminding us that Sully’s entire flight lasted 208 seconds, Eastwood is equally (if not more) invested in the way that US 1549 was an occasion for wider heroism.

As much of a piece with Flight as it is with Eastwood’s last, American Sniper, Sully is a portrait of Eastwood’s vision of heroism – patriotic, part of a community, willing and able to make hard decisions and to live with them. It’s a concise portrait from two master craftsmen, both affective and effective, and it shows that whatever directorial touch he’s got, Eastwood hasn’t lost it.

Sully is rated PG-13 for “some peril and brief strong language.” Directed by Clint Eastwood. Written by Todd Komarinicki. Based on the book Highest Duty by Chesley Sullenberger and Jeffrey Zaslow. Starring Tom Hanks, Aaron Eckhart, and Laura Linney.

American Sniper (2014)

I’m not sure why it was that American Sniper was quietly snubbed at the Oscars; despite several nominations, the film made barely a splash, and it seemed people were more interested in the (admittedly amateurish) fake baby than the frankly stellar performance by Bradley Cooper.  While I’m not saying he deserved the award more than Eddie Redmayne (or, for that matter, Michael Keaton), Cooper’s work here deserves another look, especially since the film seems to have been pigeonholed by what potential viewers likely assumed were the politics of the film.

Cooper stars as Chris Kyle in this biopic of the Navy Seal sniper who is credited with the greatest number of kills as a marksman during his service in Iraq.  Sienna Miller costars as his wife Taya, who finds it difficult to keep her family together while her husband is on and off the battlefield.

I think one reason American Sniper made little more than a ripple is because audiences expected (and some critics reported – wrongly, I might add) that the film was only a rah-rah patriotic exercise with little attention to the consequences of a military career.  To which I would say, the movie you’re probably thinking of is Lone Survivor, not this one.  Clint Eastwood has been largely brushed off by many for his conservative politics and/or his abrasive curmudgeonly attitude, but American Sniper never feels like a commercial for the military in the way that Peter Berg’s earlier film toed that same line.

No, this is something much closer to The Hurt Locker, that brilliant Oscar winner from a few years back in which Kathryn Bigelow gave us both a thriller of a war film and a very sober examination of the human psyche under such conditions.  American Sniper is comparable (though a little longer) in that it devotes about as much time to Kyle’s military experiences as to the pained moments where he’s unable to let go of the battlefield and readjust to civilian life.  What American Sniper adds to the narrative of The Hurt Locker is the sense that the country had, ultimately, failed Kyle by not helping him reassimilate.  It’s a smart humanizing move that Eastwood makes, particularly as it anticipates the claim (made by those who haven’t seen the movie) that the film essentially celebrates a murderer – Eastwood rejects that out of hand by showing the dire situation overseas, the pain through which Kyle was wrung, and his true heroism at film’s end (spoilers?) when he attains a kind of healing.

Cooper is frankly astonishing as Kyle, and in any other year I would have been rooting for him to win.  Let’s not forget that Cooper got his big break on Alias, ABC’s spy drama by way of Keri Russell’s Felicity; to see him here and in Silver Linings Playbook, doing amazing work with comedy and drama, is a career to be celebrated.  I wouldn’t go so far as to call this a disappearance into a role, but it is unequivocally a commendable transformation, particularly in his ability to emote beyond his physicality, refusing to let his bulk do the acting for him.  Eastwood is a star director of the action sequences, but it’s Cooper’s quieter moments that truly define the film and almost overshadow the film as a whole.

On the note of performances, I’d actually written off Sienna Miller about the time she did GI Joe – pretty face, Jude Law’s ex, never memorable in the one or two things I’d seen of hers before.  After American Sniper, though, I’d put her in the “one to watch” category, provided that she gets a good director.  I’m sure Eastwood is a stern hand at the till when it comes to directing, but kudos to Miller for stepping up her game and bringing in a very moving turn as the other side of this very human struggle to recover.

I don’t think American Sniper got the attention it deserved, for a number of reasons.  All of those reasons, however, are largely immaterial, more a discredit to the closed minds of the prospective audience than to the film itself.  What you have here are three very talented creative forces coming together for a film that is, if not outright moving, very intelligent about its subject matter in a way that I hope puts Eastwood back on the map as a director and keeps Cooper in the spotlight where he can do more first-rate work.

American Sniper is rated R for “strong and disturbing war violence, and language throughout including some sexual references.” Many of the combat scenes are very intense and bloody, in addition to being suspenseful and loud. The film is rather unflinching in the brutality and the immediacy of violent combat.  F-bombs proliferate, as does the typical kind of chauvinistic dialogue you’d expect in aggressive male camaraderie.

Sudden Impact (1983)

Four movies into the franchise and Dirty Harry is starting to run out of steam. Despite being directed by star Clint Eastwood, Sudden Impact isn't as entertaining or as watchable as its three predecessors.

Sudden Impact feels more like a movie with Dirty Harry Callahan in it than an actual Dirty Harry movie. Callahan (Eastwood), after apparently intentionally giving a mob figure (a fun cameo from Michael V. "Frank Pentangeli from The Godfather, Part II" Gazzo) a heart attack, is given an assignment out of town to investigate a murdered man's past in San Paulo. He meets artist Jennifer Spenser (Eastwood's then-lover Sondra Locke) and starts romancing her, not knowing that Spenser is killing the men who raped her and her sister years ago.

Eastwood is excellent as always in the shoes of Inspector Callahan, menacing and grimacing his way through another picture. The film includes one of the most famous scenes in Dirty Harry's career, right next to the "Do I feel lucky?" speech - here, he provokes a hostage taker by brandishing his trademark Magnum at the man and growling, "Go ahead, make my day." This scene alone is worth the price of admission; indeed, the first half or so of the film is all Eastwood's and ends up being the better half. Dodging mafia assassins and bonehead superiors, piecing together evidence ballistic report by report, and even acquiring a dog named Meathead in this one, Callahan continues to do it all.

Yet the film suffers for its unwillingness to relinquish full control of itself to Dirty Harry. Perhaps this is due to the fact that Eastwood is behind the camera for this adventure as well as in front of it, but the fact remains that the film spends far too much time on Jennifer's character and her backstory. Locke, unfortunately, is not an actress cut out to hold 49% of a Dirty Harry picture, which Sudden Impact asks her to do. The film also seems uncertain as to how it should react to Jennifer's crimes of revenge - is she a villain, a victim, a combination of both? Until the film's final moments, when Dirty Harry re-enters the plot and has a chance to weigh in, the film waffles like a long-faced senator from Massachusetts.

The film (according, at least, to Wikipedia) is the darkest and "dirtiest" of the Dirty Harry pictures, and at this it succeeds, so kudos to Eastwood as director for accomplishing this look and feel for the fourth film in the franchise. The film, however, is slowly-paced whenever Jennifer is on-screen - the film seems confused as to who its main character - and ultimately its hero - ought to be. Callahan continues to captivate; Jennifer, unfortunately, muddles this adventure.

While still fun and not the worst movie one could find to watch on a weekday afternoon, Sudden Impact is relatively lackluster when compared to its sterling predecessors - particularly the original, Dirty Harry, which still remains the greatest of the films. Stay tuned to see how The Dead Pool, the final Dirty Harry movie (despite rumors that Gran Torino would be the sixth outing for Callahan), measures up.


The MPAA gave Sudden Impact an R rating, a rating which would stand today for its gritty depictions of violence and of sexual assault, its strong profane language, as well as a brief scene of nudity (what are these types of scenes doing in a Callahan adventure?).

The Enforcer (1976)

With a flamboyantly absurd crew of villains, how does The Enforcer succeed? It's simple, really; make it a Dirty Harry movie and give the bad guys as little screen time as is necessary for a plot to occur.

Director James Fargo (and a good screenplay from Stirling Silliphant and Dean Riesner) saves The Enforcer from the curse of the threequel (which Christopher Nolan recently invoked in his rationale for eschewing a third Batman film - for now) by turning it into a story more about Inspector Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood) and his new partner Kate Moore (Tyne Daly). Yes, you read that right - Dirty Harry gets a new partner, and this time she's a she. Of course, this isn't exactly welcome news for the traditionalist borderline-vigilante cop, so the movie focuses more on the budding chemistry (decidedly not romantic) between the two inspectors as they try to thwart another city-for-ransom scheme, this time at the hands of the People's Revolutionary Strike Force (a homegrown terrorist group reminiscent of Patty Hearst's abductors, the Symbionese Liberation Army).

Amid hippie terrorists, rocket launchers, and mayoral abductions, it's not difficult for a movie to lose its way, but The Enforcer never forgets that Dirty Harry is the star of the film. Eastwood continues comfortably as the Bauer-esque SFPD Inspector, bearing an irritated sangfroid that makes the criminals cower. Daly holds her own with Eastwood, an excellent straight (wo)man trying to earn the begrudging respect of a partner who doesn't really want anyone around.

The action here isn't too shabby, either. There's a thrilling rooftop chase between Eastwood and a thug who's somehow connected to the bad guys, and though Eastwood never accelerates beyond a brisk jog, there's a sense of urgency and immediacy that's well-handled by the filmmakers. And, over-the-top as it may seem, there's just something damned cool about seeing Dirty Harry wield a rocket launcher.

As the shortest of the Dirty Harry pictures, there's not as much material here for me to cover. Suffice it to say that those who enjoyed the first two pictures will enjoy this one, as absurdist as some of its flaws may be. Because it's all worth it once Callahan, when asked to turn in his badge, calls it a "seven-point suppository."
Like its predecessors, The Enforcer snagged an R rating from the MPAA. There's a brief scene of fleeting nudity as the chase sequence darts through the shooting of a pornographic film, there's brief moments of profanity (only two or so F-bombs), as well as the standard amount of peril, shooting, and resulting blood that one has come to expect from this franchise.

Magnum Force (1973)

A man's got to know his limitations.

Though Clint Eastwood, returning for the first time as Dirty Harry Callahan in Magnum Force, spoke those lines in reference both to himself and to a villain overstepping his bounds, it's a complaint I've often levied against sequels. "Quit while you're ahead," I've been known to yell, "know your limitations."

Fortunately, I didn't have to yell this at director Ted Post while watching his 1973 sequel - the first in the franchise - to 1971's classic Dirty Harry. Though it's not on the scale of The Dark Knight (lest we forget its status as second in the franchise though first in our hearts) or The Empire Strikes Back as far as sequels go, Magnum Force is a worthy successor to the mantle of Callahan.

Back on the force after the touchy situations of the first film, Harry Callahan (Eastwood) is stuck on stakeout duty after boneheaded Lieutenant Briggs (Hal Holbrook) wants him out of the way to ensure a promotion for himself and continued ignominy for Callahan. But after a few scandalous characters turn up dead and a vigilante appears to be at fault, Briggs admits that this is exactly the kind of job that requires Dirty Harry to be so... well, dirty.

Something in this reminds me of LA Confidential, though Ellroy's novel came almost twenty years after Callahan butted horns with Briggs - a trait we see frequently on 24, which I've already suggested might be a descendant of the Dirty Harry franchise. As rivals on the same side of the police force, Eastwood and Holbrook are evenly matched, though the script could do with a bit more explanation for why Briggs doesn't like Callahan; there's fertile grounds in the first film for a superior disliking Dirty Harry, but aside from a brief suggestion of ambition there's not much. The film, fortunately, doesn't rely on this conflict but instead continues to rest its shoulders on Eastwood, who continues well as the gruff and grizzled Inspector Callahan.

The villain here, a vigilante sharpshooter on motorcycle, isn't as compelling as Andy Robinson's skittish dynamo of chaotic cruelty from the first film, but the mystery surrounding the killer's identity allows us to see Callahan in full detective mode. Of course, Callahan gets to flex his shooting muscles, too - with the highest body count in the franchise, there's plenty of room in Magnum Force for a few exciting shootouts and vehicle chase scenes.

Though it's no Dirty Harry, Magnum Force is plenty of fun and a good way to continue the Callahan legacy. I'll be looking forward to the rest of the movies in the series.

The MPAA slapped Magnum Force with an R rating. Violence here is sporadic and somewhat more graphic than in the first film (there's a higher body count, to boot), as well a disturbing and infamous scene involving drain cleaner. A few fleeting scenes of nudity seem unnecessary here, as does a brief sexual encounter. Brief strong language is present as well.

Dirty Harry (1971)

At this point, Clint Eastwood's "Dirty" Harry Callahan is something of a legend, a mythological figure in the annals of Hollywood. An ideological forefather of Jack Bauer, the ultimate archetype of the rule-bending policeman, even the inspiration for a Gorillaz song - Dirty Harry has a lot of hype following him almost forty years after his big screen debut.

Fortunately, Dirty Harry lives up to its hype, aging surprisingly well.

As cop movies go, this is probably one of the most definitive - though I'm going to try to avoid blacking-out pixels in such rehashing of canonically accepted beliefs of Dirty Harry's overall superlativity in filmdom. Sgt. "Dirty" Harry Callahan (Eastwood) is called in on a less-than-routine homicide after sniper Scorpio (a wickedly creepy Andy Robinson) sends a ransom note to the mayor (John "Dean Wormer" Vernon), virtually holding the city hostage. While on the case, Callahan ends up stopping a "211 (robbery) in progress" and having to decide between following the rules or stopping Scorpio before he kills again. Things get complicated when Scorpio kidnaps a young girl and buries her alive - then we find out just why Callahan is nicknamed "Dirty Harry."

That's only half the movie, but I've got to stop the plot summary there because it'd be criminal to give away any further details. Of course, like I said, director Don Siegel's first installment of what would eventually become a full-fledged franchise is something that most people have probably already seen. If you haven't, you should. Maybe it's all this talk about waterboarding and closing Gitmo, but something about Dirty Harry seemed if not timeless then at least timely. It's aged well, like a good cheese or wine, without much to date the piece as nearing its fourth decade.

Despite Roger Ebert labeling the morals of Dirty Harry as "fascist," it's difficult not to root for Callahan here, thanks in large part to Eastwood's gruffly endearing portrayal. The movie is riddled with iconic moments, like the "211 in progress" scene in which Eastwood growls his now famous "Do I feel lucky?" speech, so major props have to go to Harry Julian Fink & Co. as well for a knockout screenplay. Additionally, Siegel has a great intuition when it comes to guiding the eye of the audience (using several innovative camera angles to disorient when necessary) as well as an uncanny ability to play on the imagination, wisely showing us some things and keeping us from seeing others.

And, as far as great Hollywood villains go, Andy Robinson stands right up there with Ted Levine's Buffalo Bill from Demme's The Silence of the Lambs. Robinson sneers his way through the movie, a walking instability that could break at any minute, devising cruel plans to wreak havoc while building his own personal vendetta against Callahan. Robinson has talked about this role as a career killer of sorts, but that's the double-edged sword of pitch-perfect casting. (Ledger's Joker, anyone?). This, pardon the cliche, is one cat you wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley.

Unless, of course, you're feeling lucky. Well, do you?

The MPAA gave Dirty Harry an R, a rating that would probably stand today. The movie is violent without being excessive, indeed looking a little more fake than today's standards. Objectionable language is somewhat sparse, and there's a surprising but not graphic or close-up amount of nudity. Leave the kids at home.