The Long Path From My Desk to Clint Eastwood’s ‘The Mule’

The only other guy I can see playing "Earl", besides Eastwood of course, would have been Ed Begley SENIOR, who of course is long, long gone...or "maybe" Burt Young. But seriously, who can top Clint to begin with...even at 90-plus! I watched "Cry Macho" last night, that led me to "The Mule", which led me to the original 2014 story, which brought me here Seriously, Clint is a natural...natural-born actor, director and storyteller. He presents real everytime, no matter which side of the camera he is on, and even when being upstaged by a chimp! Never jaundiced either, he presents straight at you, raw and unvarnished. His choice in stories to tell, whether truth or fiction or some hybrid, like the lillies themselves, let you go on and on about them, and leave you wanting more. Eastwood ranks right up there with Spielberg, Lucas, Kubrick and any other American director/producer you care to name. And for an American actor he belongs with Bogie, Stewart, Cagney, Hanks, Wayne and all of them put together. If he were British we could argue about Olivier, Guinness, David Lean ansd Richard Attenborough. But as it is now, Clint Eastwood is the Tom Brady of the American Cinema. So thank you to Sam Dolnick and the NYT for bringing this story to life, for giving us the real backstory and giving Clint Eastwood another fantastic story to bring to the world in only the way he can.

I feel for this man idc I'm happy he only served a year. Don't judge another man for his choices. Who knows why he muled. I do feel that in the start he didn't know what was being put in his truck. And when he wanted out they forced him.

I read the comment below asking whether Leo Sharp died in prison or not and I was also curious about this so I did a little digging. On his 90th birthday (which was May 7, 2014) he was sentenced to three years in prison. He was released in 2015 due to declining health after only serving one year in prison. He died of natural causes in December 2016 at the age of 92 1/2.

I leave politics out of my entertainment choices. I saw the film first and read in the credits that it was based on a NYT article. Finding the 2014 piece and this follow up piece I've been pleased to get the backstory. That a Twitter find, great journalism and Hollywood fiction can intersect this way is heartening. I don't care about Eastwood's politics, this is a great story well told. The journalism involved is fantastic and for that Mr. Dolnick you are to be commended. Not every story can be completely unraveled. That Mr. Sharp's motivation was never found just makes it all the more real. Humans are complicated and often not rational. Just like so many of the comments below.

Sharp deserves NO empathy. He pushed a product that destroyed lives. Prison was too good for him.

Went to see The Mule a few days ago. Another wonderful, entertaining Eastwood film based on a true story, making it more interesting. Loved reading the true story that goes along with it.

Sam, not knowing you, I have no idea why this was written other than to promote yourself. You have just proven that you are the basest of humanity. No empathy for another human, just what you can do to promote yourself. Hopefully someone investigates your life in an equally disgusting manner.

The worst thing about Eastwood's chair speech was that it was bad art and bad political advertising--far below the standards of the man who directed "Unforgiven". It probably lost McCain more votes than it gained. But other than that, it was an honest expression of a political opinion that I happen to disagree with. No one was molested, No money was stolen. It's crazy to boycott an artist for a mere political disagreement. Eastwood has done some wonderfully perceptive work while carefully deconstructing the toxic masculine persona he created in his youth, and his films should be required viewing for any course on feminism.

Tarting the story up with nice little fictional 'touches' is one reason I've given up on fiction. Much prefer to read the original article, or watch the doco referenced below. And as for Clint Eastwood ... yuk

US SS benefits are the fourth lowest relative retirement benefits in the world, according to Business Insider. They are at starvation level for many, and my guess is that quite a few seniors would be happy to be a "mule" for a drug cartel, if only they had a suitable truck.

Of course I misspelled daylily. It's not daylilly with 2 "L"s 87 and dislexic . . . grrrr! Bob

Maybe I now have a new-found occupation. Mueling has the potential to be a bit more satisfying, rich and exciting than Meals on Wheels food, doctor visits or watching my dear friends pass away.

No more Eastwood films for me after his insulting 2012 'empty chair' charade. From now on, there's an empty chair for me in the theater whenever his films show.

I'm confused as to why Mr. Dolnick "spent months trying to understand how Mr. Sharp...wound up working for the Sinaloa drug cartel" but only met his subject once, and briefly.

A great story! But it's not day-lily. Or day lily. It's daylily. https://daylilies.org/

Daylilly people spell daylilly, "daylilly." There is no hyphon. My wife and I bred and sold daylillies for over 40 years. In all cominications and published articles in the American Hemerocallis Society Magazine; the flower has always been spelled daylilly.

After Clintwood's stunt at the republican national convention with the empty chair that lead to empty chair lynchings by republicans across the country aimed at President Obama, I have stayed away from any Eastwood movie at the theater or on television.

gonna watch this based on yr article. thank you. as to the question re what went through his mind the first time, and thereafter, well, everything is possible, you know. love, anger, compassion, hatred. no person has limited potential when it comes to what the mind can invent, justify, create, rationalize, etc. As he said, "My whole goddamn life......" he'd never had something like being arrested happen. Well, at any age, it can happen. I do wonder at what age he began to do this and what the circumstances of his life were at that time. Plus, let's remember this sad fact: MOST people would do some sort of crime if they thought they'd not be caught. That is a sad sad tail that human beings wave behind them, like a flag announcing self defeat.

So what happened? He died in prison?

Sam Dolnick's story got me hooked, just as it apparently affected Nick Schenk and Clint Eastwood. The truth is always elusive, but every reader and every filmgoer finds his or her personal truth. That's why art is interesting and endless. Looking forward to "The Mule" . . .

I feel bad for Leo and all misunderstood old people. There comes a time when our thinking is not crisp and logical. If you asked my mother if she would go to the doctor, she would strongly resist. If you told her she was going to the doctor, the appointment made, she meekly went and was relieved afterward. Old people lose their ability to make decisions. They behave unconventionally, like the Collier brothers, or bag ladies, hoarders, or begin shop-lifting for no reason. They lose connection with the past as far as cultural restraints on behavior. They become child-like. Leo should not have been sent to jail. He should have been left with his flowers and put on probation.

Suggest anyone interested in this sad story first read the original article: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/15/magazine/the-sinaloa-cartels-90-year-old-drug-mule.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article Also, if you can find it, see the original documentary "White Boy Rick" (forget the Hollywood version)...... Two very unusual people who became involved in illegal drugs.

I read the magazine story in 2014 and sent it to my criminal defense attorney daughter when the move started to get promoted. I prosecuted a few drug mules a long time ago but not anyone like Leo Sharp. When I learned how the core story was intact but everything else was fictionalized, I had pretty much decided to skip the film. But, if Mr. Dolnick is okay with the expanded story in the movie, that changes my mind.

Eastwood jumped the whale shark decades ago. Ever since "American Sniper" and his vile and nasty (anti-Obama) performance at the 2014 Republican National Convention, I couldn't care less what Clint directs or produces. He's become a de facto propagandist for the Republican party, gun violence and war mongering. And to think, I used to enjoy his films.

The short motif repeated throughout the trailer for "The Mule" was driving me crazy, until I finally recognized it is stolen from Rachmaninoff, "Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini."

there is a very good French movie about 2 old ladies and the drug bussiness

It's interesting to read about Mr. Dolnick's (and by extension others') reporting process. I've often wondered how many hours, days, weeks go in to producing a magazine piece. Surprising too he only met Leo Sharp once and the meeting added little to the article. Thanks for this. FYI Twitter may not be entirely worthless but it's close.

What a great back story! Thank you to the writer for sharing - and for writing the story in the first place. Vanessa

oy boy, a Clint Eastwood movie about an over-the-hill character still doing what young bucks do. Who saw that coming?

The older one gets the less many feel connected to the new world order. He probably didn't go from lily farmer to drug mule in a day, it was likely a series of small steps that didn't seem much at the time. And it made him feel part of something, an ethereal something that had faded from his life. Whatever the reason, if indeed there is one, it's a fascinating story, real and reel.

"I felt like a 19th-century miner emerging from a cave with a fleck of gold in my dirt-caked hand. " Now, that's a sentence. :)