Clint Eastwood

Eastwood as director, producer and main actor. That bound to be a film exactly as he wanted. He made some descent films, so why not?

Eastwood plays the old and fragile Earl Stone who always cared more about his fame in breeding flowers and his job than in his family. When that goes awry, Stone needs to find another source of income. Him having been on a road a lot, his new occupation comes to him fairly easy. He starts driving cargo for the drug mafia.

In a slow pace with realistic drama and cold humour, Eastwood tells his story. We see Stone driving the cargo that he need not know what it is and since he is never caught, his cargo grows and grows. One reason that Stone is never caught, is that he remains his own, strange self making him look very unsuspicious, but it works much on the nerves of his employer.

Then we have the other side of the story with the police trying to sabotage the drug trafficking. This ends a bit unsatisfactory (at least ‘story wise’).

The film has no surprises, but like other Eastwood films, “The Mule” makes a nice crime drama.

Eastwood has created a descent drama which plays in the 1950’ies USA. An Italian (?) (maffia) family is shook up when the eldest daughter is found dead. A policeman with close connections to the family investigates the murder and the father uses his own network to find the killer.

“Mystic River” shows how old structures collide with new and has a few twists to prove that not everything is what is seems to be.

Eastwood takes his time to tell the story of the writer John Celso (John Cusack) who would initially cover the Christmas party of the rich Jim Williams (Kevin Spacey), but the project becomes a book about Williams shooting Billy Hanson (Jude Law).

In a slow pace the story unfolds and characters develop. There is plenty of time for side-stories and after a while a more social theme bubbles up (almost) pushing the main story to the background.

The film has got some odd characters bringing some humor to it.

“Midnight” is certainly a good film, but not really my kind. 155 Minutes is fairly long, but it does not become boring. It is the kind of film to just watch some time when you have a night to fill.