The last time Clint Eastwood and Bradley Cooper teamed up the result was American Sniper, a film that produced six Oscar nominations and was 2014’s top earner at the box office. The prospects won’t be quite as grand for their next pairing, the drug trafficking drama The Mule, but the new trailer does suggest a similar story of a soldier seeking redemption for his past.
Based on a true story, The Mule finds Eastwood both behind the camera and in front of it, playing WWII veteran Earl Stone. Broke, alone, and racked with guilt over past mistakes, Earl takes a job as a drug courier for a dangerous cartel, only to draw the unwanted attention of a DEA agent played by Cooper.
It’s another small-scale, quickly wrapped project for Eastwood who just signed on to it in January and had completed shooting in July. He hasn’t starred in a film since 2012’s Trouble with the Curve, which at the time seemed like his final acting role. You’d have to go back to 2008’s Gran Torino to find the last time Eastwood directed himself.
Also starring Dianne Wiest, Michael Peña, Laurence Fishburne, Clifton Collins, Jr., and Taissa Farmiga, The Mule opens December 14th.
