Ever since catching Tony Mahony and Angus Sampson’s The Mule at SXSW, I’ve been describing it as a “you’ve got to see it to believe it” type of film, but this new trailer actually does a solid job of recreating how unsettling and gut-wrenching the full feature can get. Sampson leads as Ray Jenkins, a nice guy who gets suckered into swallowing bags of drugs and trying to smuggle them across the border. Sure enough, he gets caught and that’s when the fun starts. Ray refuses to admit that he’s got narcotics in his stomach, so the authorities have no choice, but to wait it out. They confine Ray to a hotel room and keep an eye on him day and night, waiting for the contraband to come out.
I watch a lot of horror movies loaded with carnage where people get torn apart, but The Mule made me squirm more than any of them. The new promo doesn’t spoil the moment that had me covering my eyes, but this piece is loaded with clever nods that tease how far Ray goes to conceal what he’s hiding. Hit the jump to check out The Mule trailer and click here to read my review. XLrator Media has the US rights to the film, but it's still without a release date.
Here’s the official synopsis for The Mule:
It's 1983. A naive man with lethal narcotics hidden in his stomach is detained by Australian Federal Police. Alone and afraid, ‘the Mule’ makes a desperate choice; to defy his bodily functions and withhold the evidence...literally. And by doing so becomes a 'human time-bomb'; dragging cops, criminals and concerned family into his impossible escapade. Inspired by true events, THE MULE is directed by Angus Sampson and Tony Mahony, with a darkly comic screenplay by Sampson, Leigh Whannell (Saw, Insidious), and Jaime Browne. The film stars Hugo Weaving alongside Sampson and Whannell with an ensemble cast including Ewen Leslie, Geoff Morrell, Georgina Haig, Noni Hazlehurst and John Noble.
