The Mule

I think that there's a sweetness to some of the film... There is a certain self-criticism built into the role as it goes along.

The Mule's greatest flaws are its expectedly racist and sexist undertones, but Clint Eastwood's latest directorial effort is also just extremely boring.

I was entertained up to a point.

Watching this movie is like checking the news after popping a Xanax. The world's going to hell in a handcart. But it's all good.

It's perfectly watchable but a film with this puttering pace is never going to get the blood racing.

There are worse ways of spending your time than watching Clint snarl, shuffle and frown his way through another geriatric meltdown.

In The Mule, Eastwood demonstrates, through excellent handling of both the formal and the narrative and with his characteristic poignant bold dialogues, the generational and racial differences that make up this cultural “breeding ground” that is the USA.

It’s all about a man running from his guilt, seeing the light, but still left to reckon with the choices he has made. It’s this primary focus that makes “The Mule” work.

[The Mule] begins to simmer down, rather than boil, while trying to be a family-friendly drug mule film by the end.

The material forces Eastwood's movie star persona into Earl, blending the two in troublingly convenient ways that hope to distract from the ugliness of what's happening onscreen.