Film & TV
If Clint Eastwood decides to call it a career, The Mule (2018) will have been a fine farewell. He’s at his best as a 90-year-old whose financial situation is dire. The character is offered an opportunity to deliver drugs and eventually accepts, believing it will be a one-shot. He succumbs to the temptation of what at first is easy cash, which he uses to make amends to the family from which he is estranged. He also helps others in need. His daughter, played effectively by Alison Eastwood, hasn’t spoken to him in 12 years and remains bitter even after her father pays for a large part of his granddaughter’s wedding reception. Dianne Wiest brings her considerable talent to the role of the long suffering ex-wife. Bradley Cooper, Michael Pena and Laurence Fishburne play FBI agents, and Andy Garcia a kingpin. Despite the potentially volatile situation, this is about as low key as any of Eastwood’s films. Looking every bit his age, which is close to the protagonist’s, he is too old to handle the eventual nasty turn in the way the Man with No Name or Josey Wales would have. Will the fireworks come from others? I will not play the spoiler. Although I enjoyed the flick, it was disappointing in two respects. Doing good with drug money is a great theme that no filmmaker has tackled successfully, at least in the works I’ve seen. The one I always recall is Abel Ferrara’s King of New York (1990), starring Christopher Walken as a drug lord who wants a hospital wing in his name. It is a rousing, visceral extravaganza, but falls short of serious exploration of humanity. I imagine dealers rationalize that they simply provide a product in great demand and that addiction is the fault of the individual. Is it as simple as that? Does that exonerate the dealer and justify any charitable donations he may bestow? Moving on, another aspect I would like to have known about in The Mule is the character’s military service, although he mentions in passing that it involved combat. Maybe it’s a cliche, but I wonder if his experiences were in part responsible for his failures as a husband and parent, and for his obsession with flowers, similar to Uncle Casimir on the two episodes of Mike and Gloria’s wedding on All in the Family. Cas became a florist after a stint in the Marines, saying something like he now wanted to bring beauty to the world, which charmed Gloria. Anyway, 70,000+ users at IMDb have rated The Mule, forging to a consensus of seven on a scale of ten. It did well at the box office, returning $172 million worldwide on a budget of $50 million. There is a lot of humor and a great soundtrack featuring jazz, country and pop. Eastwood directed. Nick Schenk wrote the screenplay, inspired by an article in the NY Times Magazine by Sam Dolnick. It runs just shy of two hours. Fans of action would likely be disappointed. This is a character study. Here’s the icon:
The DVD ended just in time to catch another WNDT Euro crime series that has hooked me: Tatort Cologne, which takes place in that German city that sounds like it should be in France. Its best aspect is the chemistry between Freddy and Max, the homicide detectives. Although the overall tone is serious, there is occasional humor. Last night’s episode had Freddy constantly checking himself for symptoms of scarlet fever, which his nephew contracted, and a young man singing opera in the hallway of the woman with whom he is smitten, and later at the police station. I laughed out loud. Here are Dietmar Bar and Klaus J. Behrendt in character. Each has extensive credits, largely in TV on the continent. The series began long ago and is still going strong. Bar has done 81 episodes since ’84, Behrendt 68 since ’90. It also has other incarnations such as Tatort Borowski, which I also enjoyed.
RIP Valerie Harper, 80, who had been battling cancer since 2013. Most of her work was in TV. She charmed America as Rhoda in 92 episodes of The Mary Tyler Moore Show and 110 of the eponymous spinoff. She also did 32 episodes of Valerie, left the show, sued for breach of contract, and won a large cash settlement. In reading her bio at IMDb, where she has 67 other titles under her name, almost all in TV, I was surprised to learn that she is not Jewish but a WASP and that she was born in Suffern not NYC. Here’s a quote attributed to her: “We’re all terminal; none of us are getting out of this alive.” Well done, madam. Thank you.
My thanks to the kind folks who bought wares today on Bay Parkway, and to whomever purchased Inside Out at Amazon.
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