Coming-off receiving three Oscar nominations for acting, writing and producing the critically acclaimed film “A Star Is Born,” Bradley Cooper now reunites with Clint Eastwood in Warner Bros. Pictures’ “The Mule,” following their blockbuster collaboration, “American Sniper.”
(Check out the film’s trailer at YouTube: https://youtu.be/ogvRRnLUxyU.)
A certified $100-million box-office hit in the U.S., “The Mule” will be shown exclusively at Ayala Malls Cinemas starting January 30. Moviegoers can catch the film at the following Ayala Malls: Alabang Town Center, Bonifacio High Street, Glorietta 4, The 30th, Trinoma, U.P. Town Center and Ayala Center Cebu.
Eastwood stars as Earl Stone, a man in his 80s who is broke, alone, and facing foreclosure of his business when he is offered a job that simply requires him to drive. Easy enough, but, unbeknownst to Earl, he’s just signed on as a drug courier for the cartel. He does well—so well, in fact, that his cargo increases exponentially, and Earl is assigned a handler. But he isn’t the only one keeping tabs on Earl, who has also hit the radar of hard-charging DEA agent Colin Bates (Bradley Cooper). And even as his money problems become a thing of the past, Earl’s past mistakes start to weigh heavily on him, and it’s uncertain if he’ll have time to right those wrongs before law enforcement, or the cartel’s enforcers, catch up to him.
Paralleling Earl’s story is that of the law enforcement agents who are trying to track down the various cartel mules, in particular the newest, Agent Colin Bates. Cooper plays the dog-with-a-bone DEA agent in hot pursuit of the enigmatic “mule” no one can seem to sniff out. Bates, who recently transferred into the unit, is not only trying to solve the case, but to show his superiors what he can do. Like Earl, he’s giving more of his time to work than to his family.
Cooper states, “Bates has just moved to Chicago and he’s trying to make his mark, so he can ultimately move on to a position where there are better hours. He spends a lot of time away from his family and they’re not so happy about that. But when he is assigned to find this mule who has been transporting a tremendous amount of cocaine across the country, he’s on the hunt. He thinks this could be his chance to impress.”
Ironically, when the two characters’ paths do cross, Cooper says, “there’s a connection between them, the mistakes they’ve made, the fact that neither has made family a priority. Earl urges Colin to make sure he takes the time he has and spends it with them.”
Working with Eastwood a second time was what drew Cooper to the project. “I had the honor to work with him in ‘American Sniper,’ but he wasn’t acting in it,” he says. “The fact that I would get to act with him in this movie made it an immediate ‘yes’ for me.”
Cooper not only enjoyed the moments on screen with Eastwood, but watching his performance from the sidelines as well. “There were two times on the set, watching him work, when I couldn’t stop tearing up!” he recalls. “Even once when I was in a scene with him, when my character certainly should not be crying, and I had to turn away. It was very moving. He’s a fantastic actor and he doesn’t act very often, so I think we all recognized the privilege of working with him,” Cooper concludes.
“The Mule” is distributed in the Philippines by Warner Bros. Pictures, a WarnerMedia Company. Use the hashtag #TheMule.