DISCUSSION BOARD AND COMMUNITY - EST. 1996
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According to her biography, Sharon Stone was offered the part but turned it down because she thought that it wasn’t important enough.
The Mule works lika a mix of everything that was school to the director passing through all the elements found in many of his works e mixing all personality characteristics of his roles through of his career (joker, tough, smart, fair-minded, womanizer, emotional). Exactly because of that, The Mule is the perfect goodbye (which we hope isn't true) of this true legend.
The inevitable fail is announced as soon as the script, based in true story try of Leo Sharp, try to create a parallel between James Stewart and Eastwood persona. Just for knowing a little about the career of the star of Vertigo to see the impossibility of the project: the first is the archetype of the good man that fights to reverse the crisis he went through and comes up like a bittersweet hero at the end; the other is the Man with no Name, a cold-blooded gunslinger.
Therefore, much as all secondary characteres that Earl meet on his way as a transporter of cocaine make efforts to convince us of the similarities between the essences of those two stars, this a task doomed to fail. Because we got very little to believe in the goodness of the protagonist of The Mule. Because after all, the florist is someone that made a big mistake, that ran to the drugs traffic to try to recover his home and that way, contributed to the industry of narcotraffic.
All the subplot that involve the characteres is totally irrelevant and doens't help that narrative bow of the character. Among the police persecutions and personal dramas, the plot of the movie gets over filled.
Eastwood that was never a subtle movie maker, lost himself completely trying to creat a transition between a road movie, a crime suspense, a family drama and a displaced comedy. For not picking only one of the narrattives, for not accepting the thriller nature of the project, underestimating solid and catchy performances of the agents played by Bradley Cooper and Michael Pena, he shows that his Gran Torino days are definitely in the past.
This mismatch only add to the deception caused by this hybrid, that rips laughs is wrong moments_ the scenes in which Earl interrupts his way to give car advices to a black family and to a group of lesbian motorcyclists are embarrassing and despite the good intentions of both sequences in treat the character like a tolerant old citizen.
About the technical aspects, Eastwood didn't loose the rhythm and the capacity of direct a movie. Despite all, The Mule doens't make any mistakes in this area.The edition and photography give the correct visual and pace to the picture and all the supporting cast filled with names like Andy Garcia and Laurence Fishburne make the possible to save the endeavor. And this is the point. If werent the ethical issues of the picture— Eastwood doesn't seem to understand that Earl is a criminal, independent of his motivations, in trying to turn him into a hero—the project wouldn't need to be rescued from itself. But all The Mule want is makes us sympathize with a villain without never see him with a minimum of critical sense.
Any self respected antagonist must seduce in a certain way, the audience. In Earl case, this ambiguity is never built: the script tell us that we just must have consideration and empathy for the protagonist just for the fact he is a old man victim of the circumstances_something that he clearly is not. By the way, Eastwood, this model of vegenful cowboy, would need to effort much more as an actor to convince us that he is merely helpless.
With an inexplicable obsession for cell phones and way too much didactic dialogues ,The Mule sounds like an attempt of his star of redeem himself of Blondie's crimes. It's like if Eastwood was trying to prove that his reviewers are wrong and his ideas have changed. However the world vision of the filmmaker seems to keep intact even if mascared like the insane party in Mexico shows: everything remains the same, after all. He can recognize he made mitakes but he can't be more than a draft of James Stwart.
And that's ok because Eastwwod is Eastwood despite all problematic statements of his personal life: he is a Hollywood star and doesn't need to try to be something he is not, especially for being fundamentally the anti James Stewart. To exercise his abilities as a movie maker to the maximum, the actor needs a solid script and the story of Leo Sharp had all pontencial for that. Here, however, the responsible for master pieces like Mystic River, Unforgiven and Million Dollar Baby lost himself. The Mule is probably one of worst Eastwood movies.
As soon as I finish here, I'm posting on the thread reviews and one of them is very harsh, the reviewer says The Mule is the worst Clint movie which I don't agree at all. I'm not a movie critic, I watch movies for fun and I had fun watching The Mule, I didn't go to judge the character. I confess I don't like something that is very regular in Clint movies, extensive dialogues and weepy drama families but apart from that I love the movie and it is now among my favorite ones. 
I think Ingrid Bergamn and Tippi Hedren are much more interesting than her. 
Has anyone watched full length films on youtube?
Close your eyes and try to imagine the scene, song included.
Just try....
I have never seen any of Lord of the Rings (tried to start the first one boooring) or Avatar, Star Wars... ) to rent The Rookie and the owner offered me Ghost instead. I coldly answered "No" 
After a lot time I decided to take a look and still today I don't understand all the commotion about it.
Funny thing is, Gant only “thinks in Russian” once, the other pilot commands from him are verbal.
I don’t recall wondering in prior viewings how strange it was that Gant was running from a U.S. military helicopter, surely he recognized it... Of course, his PTSD could’ve been triggered by the sudden appearance of the copter. I can’t remember if that’s explained in the novel. I enjoyed reading it and the sequel, Firefox Down!, very much.
Still, it was nice revisiting this film again. I would edit it to make it tighter, more suspenseful. 30-40 minutes could easily be scrapped.
Had I sat down to watch this movie straight on from beginning to end, I’d have dozed off. It was perfect having it on as I wrapped Christmas presents. Firefox was the very first ticket I’d bought for a large screen Eastwood movie and for that reason it’s special to me even though it’s not a favorite.
It was a nice walk down memory lane.
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