Connoisseurs of late style, ASSEMBLE! Six years after Trouble with the Curve and ten since last directing himself, Clint Eastwood graces the big screen once more with The Mule, his (what else) quickly assembled true-crime picture about which, fans of the recent pictures that we are, is highly anticipated around here. (Say what you will about 15:17 — we kind of did — it’s thoroughly unlike any American studio film in recent memory.) Based on New York Times Magazine reporter Sam Dolnick’s profile from a handful of years ago, it concerns “an award-winning horticulturist and decorated WWII veteran known for his prized day lilies when he was busted for running drugs for Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel, and sent to prison at the age of 90.” And they say actors of a certain age only get bad offers.
Co-starring rightful successor Bradley Cooper, Laurence Fishburne, Michael Peña, Dianne Wiest, and Andy Garcia, with daughter Alison Eastwood also included, The Mule opens on December 14. Watch the trailer below:
Eastwood stars as Earl Stone, a man in his 80s who is broke, alone, and facing foreclosure of his business when he is offered a job that simply requires him to drive. Easy enough, but, unbeknownst to Earl, he’s just signed on as a drug courier for a Mexican cartel. He does well—so well, in fact, that his cargo increases exponentially, and Earl is assigned a handler. But he isn’t the only one keeping tabs on Earl; the mysterious new drug mule has also hit the radar of hard-charging DEA agent Colin Bates. And even as his money problems become a thing of the past, Earl’s past mistakes start to weigh heavily on him, and it’s uncertain if he’ll have time to right those wrongs before law enforcement, or the cartel’s enforcers, catch up to him.