Clint Eastwood must, at this point, be the hardest working man in Hollywood ever.  Just in the last decade, the man has crafted an entire generation of movies (Gran Torino, J. Edgar, Invictus, Jersey Boys, American Sniper, Sully, The 15:17 to Paris) that, on their own, would already form a legendary resume for any filmmaker. Yet even at 88-years of age, Eastwood still manages to add to his unbeatable repertoire, and his latest, The Mule, is far and away one of the best movies I’ve ever seen.

The story, written by Nick Schenk and based off real events, depicts a Korean War vet, Earl Stone, who has a reputation among his friends and co-workers as an expert florist and fun guy to have around, while his family despise him because he’s too busy with work to give a damn about them. When his business goes belly up because of his disregard for, as he puts it, the “fuckin’ internet”, all Earl is left with is the people who hate him the most: his family. Wanting to make amends and find purpose in his life once more, Earl does a Walter White and turns to the drug trade as a delivery man, and as is usually the case when one starts working for a Mexican cartel, things don’t go quite as smoothly as he hopes.

Earl Stone is an incredibly well-written character whose complexity alone carries the entire movie. He’s a white Korean-War vet who casually calls African Americans “Negroes” to their faces without realizing that he’s being offensive. At one point, he distracts a police officer investigating two of his cartel co-workers by saying that he hired them from outside a Home Depot to work on his house. Yet there isn’t a racist bone in his body; regardless of who he’s talking to, he carries an earnest, old-fashioned gentlemanly charm that even the cartel members can’t help but admire. It takes exceptional writing to plausibly humanize murderous Mexican cartel members, as they go from treating Earl with hostility to looking up to him like a cool grandpa.

Meanwhile, a DEA team headed by Colin Bates (Bradley Cooper) is onto Stone’s tail, thanks to an informant working within the cartel. Cooper, having worked with Eastwood in American Sniper, puts in a likable performance as another workaholic teetering on the edge of familial neglect. Bates’ role in the story is similar to that of Stone’s cartel handler, Julio: both are professionals of the highest order who detach themselves emotionally for the sake of the job, but upon coming into contact with Stone, are humbled by his decency into seriously meditating on the paths before them in their relatively young lives. It is here where the narrative in The Mule truly lives: within the conflict between working for a greater meaning or working for one’s own satisfaction.

The Mule could very easily have been a gritty crime thriller with chases, shootouts, and piles of bodies, but if you’ve ever seen Unforgiven or Gran Torino, you’d know that Clint Eastwood is rarely one to follow genre conventions. The film moves at a languid pace that audiences drunk on today’s movies might find off-putting. The story is told in as linear and straightforward a manner as possible, and there are no intense close-ups or rapid cutting. The Mule that wants you to take in its many narrative layers without unnecessary stylistic distractions. In that sense, it feels very much like a movie made in the 1960s and 70s, before special effects and shorter attention spans fueled change in the industry.

As Earl Stone undergoes delivery after delivery, The Mule slowly reveals itself as a movie with a lot of heart that, much like its grizzled protagonist, doesn’t give a shit about what you want it to be. It’s a nuanced examination of the difficult balance between hard work and family devotion that many Americans struggle with, and equally importantly, the resilience of old-fashioned decency to cut through criminality, bigotry, and personal hatred. These themes, combined with Eastwood’s signature directing of letting story and characters speak for themselves, make The Mule a true breath of fresh air. Go see this movie.