Based on a strange true story, Tony Mahony and Angus Sampson's The Mule follows Ray Jenkins, a naive and possibly mentally challenged man who lives at home in the suburbs with his mother and stepdad. Named the clubman of the year by his local football team, Ray is asked by his friend Gavin to accompany him to Bangkok to smuggle heroin. Reluctant, Ray is essentially tricked into smuggling a kilo by swallowing twenty condoms only to be picked up by airport security. Denying an x-ray, the Austrailian police can legally detain him for 7 days, stashing him in a hotel room. The Mule's premise is simple- a man attempts to hold in his feces for seven straight days in an effort to evade the police and the jail time associated with drug smuggling. This film can be downright grotesque at times but The Mule manages to be a funny, black comedy about a man somehow evading not only the police but the drug dealers who themselves want their product back. Ray is a character that it takes awhile to get emotionally invested in, something that hurts the film at first, but this film does become a solid underdog story. A film from Austraiia, The Mule uses the 1983 America's Cup yacht race that saw Australia miractulously steal a victory as a parallel to Ray's miraculous win. A strange "pet project to have", The Mule is a unique black comedy that isn't anything special from a narrative perspective but its bizarre underdog story makes it worth a look.
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AuthorLove of all things cinema brought me here. Archives
June 2023
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