Directed by: Clint Eastwood
Starring: Clint Eastwood, Bee Vang, Ahney Her, and Christopher Carley
Plot: Walt Kowalski is a widower who holds onto his prejudices despite the changes in his Michigan neighborhood and the world around him. Kowalski is a grumpy, tough-minded, unhappy an old man, who can't get along with either his kids or his neighbors, a Korean War veteran whose prize possession is a 1972 Gran Torino he keeps in mint condition. When his neighbor Thao, a young Hmong teenager under pressure from his gang member cousin, tries to steal his Gran Torino, Kowalski sets out to reform the youth. Drawn against his will into the life of Thao's family, Kowalski is soon taking steps to protect them from the gangs that infest their neighborhood. Taken from www.imdb.com.
Post-1990, Clint Eastwood's career as a director has been pretty mediocre. Oh sure his swan song to the Man-With-No-Name in "Unforgiven" was wonderful, and "Space Cowboys", "Flags of Our Fathers", and "Letters From Iwo Jima" were all pretty damn good, and I seem to be the only person who thought "Million Dollar Baby" was just a poor story adapted for shock value and tear jerker potential. But for the most part Eastwood's career since the 90s has been composed of the best movies you've never cared about.
I want to say I was optimistic going into this film. I want to tell you that knowing Clint Eastwood is a capable writer/director/actor I knew I would see something good. I cannot tell you this however, as it would be bullshit. I came in expecting another great film that I'm only going to watch once and never see again.
In this story we follow the character of Walt Kowalski. An old and extremely angry man with a family full of selfish fuckheads that he doesn't care about. His wife has just died and the once quiet happy neighborhood he's lived in all his life has now become a ghetto dominated by Asian-Americans (mainly Hmong people.) It becomes fairly obvious in the first establishing shots of the neighborhood that Walt is a dying breed as his is the only house on the block that isn't in shambles and still has a decent lawn.
Walt's next-door neighbor Thao (Bee Vang) gets wrapped up with his cousin Spider's (Doua Moua) gang and as his initiation attempts to steal Walt's 1972 Gran Torino. Naturaly he fails as you don't fuck with the Eastwood and the gang attempts to punish him for messing up. This culminates with Walt stepping out into the yard and holding an M-1 Garand into of the gangster's face and proclaiming the cranky old bastard mantra "Get off my lawn." Followed by no less than 3 paragraphs of racial slurs.
As thanks for saving Thao and as punishment for trying to steal Walt's car and thus dishonoring the family, Thao's sister Sue (Ahney Her) volunteer's him to work to pay back for what he has done. Walt sets Thao to working on the house across the street from his own and ultimately starts to warm up to Thao and Sue and ultimately becomes closer to their family than he is to his own. He sets out to give Thao an oppurtunity to do something other than end up in prison by helping find a job and stand up for himself. I can't reveal more of the plot without giving it away but if you've ever seen an Eastwood film you can surely figure out where things go from there.
I don't think I have to tell you what kind of performance Eastwood gives. In a world where once magnificent actors like Robert Deniro and Al Pacino are aging like mayonaisse in the sun it's good to see that Clint is as good as he ever was. Not only is Walt himself a dying breed but the type of character is also going the way of the dodo. He's essentially a modern day Archie Bunker, a prejudiced old man that not only isn't a skinhead but actually is rather good hearted.
It's made rather clear early on that Walt isn't actually a racist as he seems to hate all people equally but people still seem to throw fits over his use of racial slurs, even if he does spread it across the board for white people as well as minorities. Walt is a man that judges people as individuals and uses insults as terms of endearment (the scenes with Walt and his barber illistrate this perfectly.) except in the cases when he wants to insult someone which is usually when he's got a gun pointed at them. So savor this character, we'll probably never see one like him for a long long time.
Christopher Carley is another milestone as a Catholic Priest that was apparentl y very close to Walt's wife before she died. He is keeping his promise to get Walt to come to confession. Thought the character is portrayed as 27 and Carley himself is 31 he looks to be about 19 and manages to play a much more down to Earth character than a typical priest/minister in a film. Carley serves as a play at Walt's faith throughout the film, clearly the man sees himself going to hell and sees no way around it and Carley seems to ground him and force him to face himself at several key points.
Bee Vang and Ahney Her are both wonderful despite what people say about their acting. All of the Hmong people in this film have no previous acting experience (aside from antagonist Doua Moua) but they do wonderfully. The real problem is that their speech patterns seem very forced and unnatural which is taken as bad acting. To me it just sounded like the speech patterns of people who speak English as a second language and fit with the characters, it's far more apparent with Ahney than it is with Bee. Ignoring their speech patterns though they are both well-fleshed out characters that form a very realistic dynamic with Eastwood, you get the impression that they are to Walt the children he wishes he had instead of his selfish asshole sons.
"Gran Torino" is a drama, but it's full of humor which I've always felt is the backbone of a good film no matter what genre or subject matter. Almost all of the laughs come from Walt, and it's not over anything meaning to be particularly silly or jokey. Walt is just simply one of those characters so cantankerous that you just start laughing when someone says or does something as you know his reaction will be priceless. Especially during the time where he's serving as a mentor to Thao, particularly a scene where he takes him into the barber shop to teach him how men talk.
Of course Walt is also probably the most badass old men in all of the land. Eastwood is still in Man-With-No-Name mode for most of the movie, including his trademark tobacco spitting chain smoking moments and his way of kicking the shit out of people about 3-4 times his junior. This still doesn't take awa from the more dramatic aspects of the character as you see he is a very sad and tortured man that's angry at the world for all of his problems.
The movie switches from lighthearted to dramtic rather seamlessly and the scene where it does is intensely powerful even if the source of drama comes from the old book of tricks that everybody uses. And the ending is equally moving even if you do see it coming from a mile away.
If anything this film just solidified my point that Eastwood needs to make "Dirty Harry 6." Sure he's said this is his last film, but he said that with "Million Dollar Baby" too.
It's powerful, moving, and emotional but not alienating to the audience like most Oscar bait seems to be. In the same way that "Unforgiven" was a swan song for the Man With No Name, "Gran Torino" is a swan song for the tortured old man that just wants to feel like he's done something good with is life.
I give "Gran Torino" a 5 out of 5. I highly reccomend seeing this in theaters.
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