Only 88, but passing for 90, Clint Eastwood (in his leading man swansong?) has made a rather lovely, unexpectedly conventional film out of a decidedly unconventional ‘true’ story. Big ‘quote marks’ on ‘true’ as Nick Schenk’s script is all ‘story beats’ in arranging the plot of a newly broke, elderly flower farmer, reinventing himself as a small-time drug runner for a Mexican cartel family. Turns out, he’s good at the job. Who’s stopping a 90-yr old guy in a beat up truck? Maybe too good. Soon, he’s Top Mule, earning too much cash to stop before he finds himself mired in lethally dangerous below-the-border family politics. It’s a tossup whether the FEDS, led by a bemused Bradley Cooper, or new violent drug dealing bosses will take him out first. And that’s just when a crisis long brewing in his own, largely ignored (and resentful) family, turns the drama in a different direction. The film moseys along in the first half, but you don’t much mind the extra 20 minutes: everyone such good company (daughter Alison Eastwood especially so as his daughter), the craft impeccable, the details so bizarre. You do wonder whether or not this might work with less of a well-made Hollywood story structure pointing every plot turn at us. Still, an unusual item. Call it gentlemanly moviemaking. Something we’ll miss when it’s gone from our screens.
DOUBLE-BILL: Art Carney had a hit as an old man turned to crime with two senior pals in GOING IN STYLE/’79. But the tone of Paul Mazursky’s HARRY AND TONTO/’74, a flaky road pic for Carney & his cat after retirement better matches Clint's melancholy vibe.
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