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“Every now and then I like to lend a hand to you negros”. It’s a line from Earl, a ninety-year-old flower enthusiast, during one of his trips as a drug courier. Followed closely by goons monitoring him from a few meters away, he decides to stop anyway to assist a couple with a flat tire.
This is just one of the many provocative, almost paradoxical points of Clint Eastwood's latest film. More than a film, it's a philosophical essay by a man who is anything but banal, sharp, whose hardened heart reveals a stern kindness, not seeking pity from others.
The director's consistency is moving, his tenacity in recounting what is his ideal Republic. Unlike his recent works, this time he includes his own figure, thinned by decades yet resistant as iron. He almost plays himself, laying bare all his idiosyncrasies, his little tolerance for the frivolous discussions of America's salons, unmasking the hypocrisy of political correctness ensconced in its ivory tower (and in recent years, many such films have emerged), allowing frankness to coexist with calling things by their names (negros, lesbians, gringos, and so on) and the ability to engage with anyone without having more prejudices than many others.
Prejudice is central; every action is determined by it: but this time it's not so much (or at least not only) about prejudice against blacks or Mexicans. No, it's about the positive a priori prejudice towards a ninety-year-old white man, who could have three hundred kilos of drugs in his trunk, yet no one would ever dream of checking.
The police, the DEA, are essentially mocked: despite having spies, technological tools, wiretaps, helicopters and more, the human factor ultimately determines which black pick-up to stop. And they certainly wouldn’t dream of stopping Earl’s.
A white and conservative director indicts the fallacy of American society, doing so by portraying precisely the stereotype of the citizen who is protected a priori. He travels, calm, humming songs from another time, stopping for a sandwich or ice cream, lingering with prostitutes until late. No one dreams of investigating such a quintessential American paradigm.
In his paradigmatic nature, Earl embodies a moment of an America that's degenerating. He doesn't really need that money; it's the ultimate metamorphosis of a desire for grandeur, a mania for having more and immediately, even to do good but always with a frivolous, showy touch. An everyday emptiness and boredom to be filled, but what can an old florist with almost no one do? The choice of bourgeois crime seems almost logical and perfectly represents the frustrations that become the boundless ambitions of today's society.
Earl can't simply fit into a paradigm; he is a complex figure: he has made many mistakes, neglected his family, resorted to crime, but his life is a peaceful one, or rather anesthetized. He never really confronts his nemeses, he avoids, escapes, knows how to enjoy the spontaneous joy of a pork roast sandwich, or a beautiful song while traveling.
He is human, profoundly human. As are we all. And this is a tremendous achievement for the film because every character, from family members to cartel bandits, including bosses and DEA agents, they all come first as human beings rather than just masks, as figures with a function. There is good in everyone, even in the most ruthless criminals. It's just about finding the right lever to open their hearts. Earl chats with those who load his van with cocaine, asks them about their kids, hangs out with them learning to use a smartphone. These are small matters, trivial chats, but they add color to life. Earl doesn't follow the dictated path; he makes his rounds, stops when he pleases. His life is not a mathematical graph.
It is impossible not to think, in two moments, of the most famous sequence from Heat – La sfida; I almost fear to say that this time Eastwood has even outdone Michael Mann. The encounter between cop and bandit is dual, in two very brief acts. But this time Nanni Moretti won't be able to contest anything. Two “naked” men consoling each other. In the end, I wanted to cry.
In short, prejudices dictating our actions, the decay of society, the whims of the ego, our human dimension. "Light" topics to which the director finally adds the heavy burden: family and state. The message is simple, but here it lives through more touching dramatization rather than the refinement of concepts: The Mule is not a finely crafted film, on the contrary, it piles arguments to support simple theses, which many still struggle to practice even when understood.
And then there's family, neglected for work, for women, for success, for every whim imaginable. It takes death to mature an inadequate father like Earl. I won't say more. And finally comes the State, so harshly criticized by Eastwood. It is not made of laws, not made of judges and lawyers: it is made of men, more or less petty, more or less strong, with iron balls or weak, more or less honest, responsible, and objective about their mistakes. The perfect citizen condemns himself for what he has done. He is not a monster for committing crimes; on the contrary, he is almost relieved because he serenely embraces the need to be punished.
In his path to redemption, Earl-Clint traces the route to a “perfect world,” his perfect world. Sometimes he is moralizing, makes a lot of mistakes, almost everything, but at ninety, he comes to understand. He wanted to tell us, reveal it with a film, to lend us a hand in living.
8.5/10
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