It is one of the best Clint Eastwood films of recent years: a twilight ‘road movie’ arrives on Netflix with which he dismantles the myth of the cowboy

The agility with which he faces Clint Eastwood shooting, especially recently, has amplified the visual austerity that has often characterized his films as a director. That is why he can leave a sense of simplicity or carelessness in his recent filmssomehow missing out on some fabulous jewels that he has been leaving in recent years.

It’s true that movies like ‘Cry Male‘ have suffered a lot from this accelerated process, but great dramatic moments do not stop shining where he exhibits that fordian muscle that never stops being there. In any case, it is still a minor version of the great film he made previously and it is one of his most notable successes that has been least commented on. Is about ‘Mule‘.

all this for what

The film makes one of its usual walks through streaming, joining the Netflix catalog. A perfect opportunity to enjoy one of the best films he has made in the last decadeemploying the road movie genre to make a skillfully disassembled and deconstructed twilight anti-hero story.

Eastwood returns before the cameras to tell the true story of an octogenarian horticulturist who finds himself in a precarious financial situation. In order to support herself, not lose her properties and be able to give financial support to her granddaughter, she becomes a drug dealer for a Mexican cartel. His docile and innocent old appearance helps him drive kilos of cocaine across the country with little effort.

However, and although it is an easy conclusion, money is not going to give you happiness and the love of your family. Despite the touch of a thriller (with a bit of a subtle aroma of a modern western) that has tension with the cartel and the search carried out by the DEA with the character of Bradley Cooperthe real conflict at the heart of ‘Mula’ is with a family he has neglected and failed for years.

‘Mule’: Eastwood naked

Without much fanfare, Eastwood does an exquisite drama that feels very personal, introducing his own daughter in the cast to accentuate the deconstruction of both the cowboy and himself. The complicated, work-obsessed hero is here stripped bare more than ever in his cinema, reflecting deeply on what he really means to be a hero and for whom.

The value of time spent with the people who matter, the inconsequentiality of legacy. Eastwood exposes himself in a big way in a deliberately small film, which maintains the great virtues from the austerity and even surprises with a somewhat dandy humor that here feels tender. Probably because we have an author in one of his greatest points of sincerityand that magnifies this imperfect twilight movie.