The Mule (2014)

Number Rolled: 85

Movie Name/Year: The Mule (2014)

Tagline: It’s what’s inside that counts.

Genre: Comedy, Drama, Crime

Length: 102 minutes

Rating: NR

Production Companies: 4Cows, Cherub Films, Screen Australia

Producer: Michele Bennett, Miranda Colman, Angus Coupland, David Griffiths, Jane Liscombe, Troy Lum, Bryce Menzies, Angus Sampson, Leigh Whannell

Director: Tony Mahony, Angus Sampson

Writer: Leigh Whannell, Angus Sampson, Jaime Browne

Actors: Hugo Weaving, Angus Sampson, Leigh Whannell, Ewen Leslie, Geoff Morrell, Georgina Haig, Noni Hazlehurst, John Noble, Nick Farnell, Marney McQueen, Dave Lawson, Chris Pang

Stunt Doubles: Craig Brookshaw, Reg Roordink

Blurb from Netflix: Recruited to smuggle drugs by swallowing condoms full of heroin, a man is detained at customs and arrested, hoping his stomach can outlast the police.

Selina’s Point of View:

I had a huge amount of trouble getting into this film.

It’s not that the story wasn’t interesting. I’m sure that someone else would have found it enthralling, but I was just kind of grossed out for most it.

Although the story was based on truth, I feel like whatever changes they may have made to the main character made him unrelatable.

Yes, I know he was meant to be a little off, but it was to the extreme that it was actually really distracting. In fact, I didn’t find myself caring about any of the characters.

It shouldn’t have been that difficult for me to find at least one relatable character in a film that was based on real life.

The Mule just turned out to not be my kind of film.

Cat’s Point of View:

I have to say; this movie was more crime and drama than comedy. There weren’t enough laughs to balance out the darkness and cringe factor here. Seriously – this has some The Human Centipede: First Sequence (2009) level nastiness. I am very thankful I didn’t try to watch this anywhere around food.

I’m a sucker for accents, so listening to all the Aussie was interesting – but it wasn’t enough to keep me invested in the movie.

John Noble (Risen, Elementary, Sleepy Hollow) and Hugo Weaving (The Wolfman, Cloud Atlas, Hacksaw Ridge) were the recognizable cast members for me. Their roles weren’t outside of anything expected, given their filmographies to date. They did well, I just didn’t see anything new or interesting from them.

I have to give a serious nod of respect to Angus Sampson (Insidious, Blinder, Fargo) for the physical challenges of his lead role here. While I can hope that the production team made it as pleasant as possible for him, I’m sure that just the thought of what his character was going through had to be nausea inducing.

I’m a bit disappointed here. The trailer built this up as something funnier than it ended up being and I was rather looking forward to watching this. Unfortunately, I ended up being mostly bored while trying not to throw up. Maybe it’s funnier in Australia?

Needless to say, I’d give this one a pass.

Languages

Speech Available: English

Subtitles Available: English

Rotten Tomatoes Critic Score – 86%

Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score – 70%

Metascore - 57/100

Metacritic User Score – None

IMDB Score – 6.3/10

Trust the Dice: Selina’s Rating – 2/5

Trust the Dice: Cat’s Rating – 1.5/5

Trust-the-Dice’s Parental Advisory Rating: R

Movie Trailer: