This movie was like "Blow" but in s***
Big respect for Clint Eastwood for still making movies and *technically* this wasn't bad. And I'm not going to say it was pointless. But what really happens in it?
Guy hauls drugs and gets invited to a party once to the boss (how many mules are usually invited to cartel bosses parties? Come on man.)
By the way, his granddaughter's friend is a cartel member. How comes we never got back to that? Seems kind of a bad situation.
And that's it, he's just driving around being unable to stick to a schedule. He's so unreliable, it's not clear why they even hire him. I find such people pretty annoying myself so I'm torn apart here. He could have just delivered that last shipment and then go see his ex-wife. Based on the information he had, she surely would have lasted another day - and she did! Almost a week. And he was only hours away from his destination. Just say "I'll be there as soon as I can, I'm 500 miles out" and be done with it. No family drama either.
It's also unclear why they don't put a lock on their bags or something. It's also unclear why he keeps hauling drugs, he has enough money and only ever cared about flowers. He doesn't spend any of the money in the entire movie except for that truck. I guess once you've been invited to the cartel boss (for whatever reason, I mean, I didn't see any of the other 5000 mules there..), you can't quit anymore because you know too much, eh? ... that's a consideration he should have had before going there, by the way. But he didn't consider anything, ever, he's just the driver, ok? Suck it up, audience.
Why did he even go? Only to have a short dialog with a cartel member about doing things you love and the movie's weak identity-finding plot arch.
Then pretty much nothing happens until his ex-wife dies and we get to see a death scene. Okay... I mean I find such things meaningful in a drama, but we never knew her, and the little we know was that she was annoying. I don't feel your love here, Mule Driver Guy. I don't feel much pain either, I feel repelled by death itself for a moment. Ok, you reminded me of death. It's necessary sometimes, I get it. But was it really a plot?
Yea and then he's in prison. He didn't want to waste any more of his precious time (oh really. You just wasted 2 hours of mine!) and went there and he can do gardening and probably see his daughter. That's cool. But that's like the ending of Blow except in that movie, at least some things happen sometimes, even though that's in essence another pointless biography movie.
So yea. Spending time with your family, okay.... okay.
Kind of everything that was in this movie, was in another movie in more amplified forms. Blow (drugs then prison), The Wrestler (estranged from daughter), Shawshenk Redemption (don't waste time), and the composition of its elements was not special either...
Also the cartels are depicted a lot differently than, ermm.., reality I guess. And that's really not a subject that should be downplayed, those people are brutal beyond belief. Just getting shot in an alley like towards the end of the movie would still be considered humane for them.
So uhh... this didn't really bring anything new or better to the table in my opinion.