The first line uttered in Clint Eastwood’s “The Mule” is from Earl Stone (Eastwood), who greets one of the workers on his daylily farm: “Hey Jose, what’s with the taco wagon? It’s like you were born to be deported.” Then Jose and Earl laugh, which is how all of Earl’s many wildly racist remarks are treated in “The Mule.” It’s as if they’re completely harmless, because Earl’s just a curmudgeonly old timer who just doesn’t know better. Or does he? Regardless, hundreds of people are responsible for “The Mule,” who very much should have known better than to release this bizarre, offensive debacle.
With this, as well as Eastwood’s misguided nonfiction/narrative hybrid “The 15:17 to Paris” from earlier this year, it seems Warner Bros. is in the business of handing the movie legend a few million bucks every now and then. That doesn’t mean they also have to make us watch the damn things — which are at the least totally unwatchable, and at the worst, completely irresponsible.
“The Mule” is adapted by screenwriter Nick Schenk from a New York Times Magazine article, “The Sinaloa Cartel’s 90-year Old Drug Mule” by Sam Dolnick. (Schenk also wrote Eastwood’s “Gran Torino.”) The film is a fairly straightforward adaptation of the true story, but the racist cultural stereotypes and truly appalling treatment of women is all thanks to Schenk and Eastwood.
Earl’s life of crime starts with the World Wide Web, which decimates his daylily empire. At the behest of his granddaughter’s pal, he shows up to a tire shop hoping to get paid to drive. The group of Mexican men he encounters loads his truck with duffel bags and a burner phone and send him on his way. It’s easy enough work for the envelopes of cash he receives, and the elderly white Earl goes undetected by police, especially when he rambles at them about pecans and caramelized corn.