Author's judgement: 
Almost 90 years, over 60 films, four Academy Awards: a living icon of world cinema. All possible cinematic good and bad has been written about him, his political positions often siding with the Republican right, his representations on the big screen of what is right and what is wrong, or of what is defined as "politically correct” are still a matter of debate. His name is Clint Eastwood and this week's film is The courier - The mule, where he himself is an actor, director and producer.
The story is inspired by a real-life character: Leo Sharp who around the 80s becomes a drug courier for the powerful and ruthless Sinaloa cartel until the DEA frames and arrests him. All very simple, in its total drama, all very linear where everyone is in the right place and does exactly what is expected of them. The bad guys always have weapons in hand and the good guys, even armed, manage (thankfully) to almost always get the better of them. The film, in some respects, is so reminiscent of those road movies that made the cinema made in the USA good luck: six-lane highways, boundless panoramas, more or less ramshackle motels along the road. Furthermore, once again, the enormous criminal, economic, social and political weight of an uninterrupted river of drugs that has been invading the entire American continent for decades and, unfortunately, not only that, is projected onto the big screen.
To all this is added the weight of the baggage of a human story common to many people all over the world: family ties, life and death, lost opportunities, important moments that often happen to be lost along the way. All light, all evanescent and ephemeral, exactly like the flowers that the protagonist cultivates and loves with great passion as, at the same time, all hard and concrete as exactly what happens in real life in his mandatory appointments. The screenplay simply has to follow in detail what the true story is able to reveal. It is precisely in this sense that all of Clint Eastwood's ability, professionalism and experience are felt: he manages to keep the story going without any need to force his hand into superfluous narrative devices or low-grade special effects. Everything flows exactly in the right time and, from this point of view, he is a master raised and fed at the table of just as many masters: first of all Sergio Leone who with the fundamental trilogy of the Italian western genre gave him international fame.
There isn't much else to add about the film and one can certainly have doubts about the possibility that Il Corriere could enter the nomination for some prestigious international award. Conversely, we can be sure that in the encyclopedia of cinema the name Eastwood will have a separate chapter. If only for this, being able to still see one of his directorial work as well as with his unchanged and immutable face as we have known him in all of his films, deserves the cost of the ticket. You may or may not like him, but he cannot be denied his rightful place in the history of the big screen.
Venera
Beograd, Valjevo