Sometimes, you encounter a movie that when it ends you find yourself scratching your head. Not because you didn’t understand the plot (or got lice from the movie seat) but because you wonder why you wasted a Saturday night (and cash) seeing it. That’s how I felt after seeing Clint Eastwood’s new film, The Mule.

Clint Eastwood. I love his movies. Dirty Harry. The Enforcer. Play Misty For Me. Magnum Force. All of the spaghetti westerns. I even forgave him for doing that sappy Bridges of Madison County with Meryl Streep (that bitch). Gran Torino, where he stands outside of his house with a shotgun telling the thugs to “Get off my lawn!” is classic tough guy Eastwood. I don’t know what happened to that guy, but he is nowhere to be found in this film.

In The Mule, Eastwood plays a cantankerous (synonym for mule, by the way) old guy, named Earl, who is obsessed with farming day lilies. He is estranged from his ex-wife and daughter. Apparently a full-time day lily job with long hours spent kneeling in the dirt left him no time for a family- and there’s your subplot. At the beginning of the film Earl has just been tossed out of his house due to a lack of day lily funds. At a chance meeting at his granddaughter’s engagement party, Earl meets a young guy who offers him a job delivering “packages” between Texas and Illinois. With no other prospects in sight and an old truck packed with his belongings, Earl thinks, “What the hell.” And so begins the long, arduous trip for Earl, and the movie goer, as he crosses the country over, and over and over again.

Now, Eastwood has always struck me as the smart guy in his films (except when he falls for Streep n The Bridges of Madison County). But, this Eastwood is as dumb as a plank. When Earl gets to his first pickup in a tire store garage, he doesn’t even bat an eye when he’s met with a group of gun-toting, tattooed hombres. They give him a list of instructions, a burner phone and outright death threats if he screws up. Earl never asks about what’s in the packages or why it’s so secretive. He’s more concerned about how to use the burner phone than he is about the large canvas bags being tossed into the back of his truck. With a quick nod and some Eastwood mumbling, Earl is off on his first drug run. The next two hours of the film are filled with endless overhead drone shots of a pickup truck driving down the highway. Interspersed between the highway shots are scenes with Earl and his estranged family.

His ex-wife, Mary, is played by Diane Wiest. A wonderful actress who has the unfortunate handicap of possessing the voice of an elf. The conversations between Eastwood and Wiest are some of the strangest in cinematic history. He would mumble something to her and she would reply in a high-pitched, tiny, tiny voice that only dogs could hear. During one of their conversations, Mary suddenly clutched her chest in pain. I leaned over to Tim and said, “She’ll be dead soon.” I was right. Her quick death came about eight minutes after the pain. I think the deathbed scene with Earl and Mary was probably touching, but, I only heard low-pitched mumbling from Eastwood and what sounded like a squeaky cat toy coming from Wiest. Even her death rattle sounded like a mouse caught in a trap.

Once Mary’s dead, Earl feels free to hang out with hookers. Now, I’ve seen more slasher and horror films than I can count and I never close my eyes or look away. However, seeing two hookers undressing a skinny, saggy, wrinkled old Clint Eastwood was more than I could bear. I not only closed my eyes, I also put my jacket over my head to ensure a total blackout. I don’t know how much those hookers charged him, but it was Not. Enough. Money.

Not even Bradley Cooper could save this film. Earlier in the film there’s a chance meeting between Eastwood and Cooper and Cooper has no idea he’s having coffee with the notorious drug runner he’s hunting. When they come face to face again at the takedown, Cooper acts like he’s found his long lost friend. He was the most laid back, friendly, easy going DEA agent I’ve ever seen. Even after he arrests Earl he goes over to the police car to see how he’s doing. “How’s the family?” “Fine. How’s yours?” “Did your daughter call you?” “No. She’s still mad.” “How’s your wife? Still angry you missed your anniversary?” “Yeah. Oh well, you’re going to prison now, Earl. See ya around.”

The final scene is Earl in a straw hat, planting his day lilies in a prison garden. He has a number of inmates helping him with his flowers and he looks happy and content. I have no idea what he does with these flowers. Probably making nice bouquets for Bradley Cooper when he comes to visit.