Eastwood displays his thoroughbred status in The Mule

I've just gotten around to watching The Mule, last year's Clint Eastwood thriller that showed that even in his late Eighties, the actor can carry a movie and very much remains Hollywood's premier movie legend.

For someone who regularly watches old Eastwood movies it can be brutal to see just how old the actor really is, especially when you've been a fan for your entire life. Eastwood has always been craggy faced, even as far back as the Dollar movies but these days even his wrinkles are wrinkled. Still, he's not the only one - I was probably around ten years of age when I first started watching Eastwood moves, staying up late to devour Dirty Harry or Magnum Force on ITV back in the Seventies, and I'm into my Fifties now so I do hope that I wear my own wrinkles with the grace of Mr Eastwood.

He's still the same old Clint, too touch for age to change him and one scene in this movie sees the ancient thespian enjoying a romp with two prostitutes. Thankfully, the scene cuts away from the main action but the implication that things went well enough, even without viagra, is quite clear. There are several scenes where Eastwood's characters is pushed around by a group of thugs and the viewer does long for \a scene where Eastwood punches out one of these thugs and asks him if ,  'are you feeling lucky, punk?'. of course that would be silly and The Mule is anything but silly.

In this movie, based on the true story of drug mule, Leo Sharp Eastwood plays aged gardener Earl Sharp who has fallen on hard times - his flower business ruined by the onset of the Internet who becomes a drug mule after meeting a drug runner who offers him an easy way to make money - 'all you've got to do is drive'. In the real life story Leo Sharp was a veteran of World War II but in the movie Eastwood's character is a vet of the Korean War.

The real Leo Sharp and Eastwood's Earl Sharp

And so using the story of Leo Sharp as a basis for the story Eastwood's movie changes the facts slightly for dramatic effect - in our film Sharp is estranged from his family and in the movie Sharp's ex-wife dies of cancer, which prompts Sharp to send the drug cartel into a frenzy when he rushes home mid-job with the back of his pick-up truck concealing a fortune in cocaine.

The Mule is a great slow burning movie; a typical latter day Eastwood movie though in truth Eastwood's career is filled with slower films that take their time in telling their stories - think of Honkytonk Man, the underrated masterpiece, for one and even further back something like, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot. The Mule grapples with several of Eastwood preferred themes including regret, forgiveness, mortality and the power of redemption, and is a grown up drama that proves the silver screen can be magical without explosions and lycra-clad heroes. 

I for one thought The Mule was excellent, but then I may be a little biased since I fucking love Clint Eastwood.