Directed by: Clint Eastwood
Grade:
B+
“Get off my lawn,” growls Walt Kowalski
(Clint Eastwood), a Korean War veteran and Gran Torino’s unlikely hero who aims
his M1 Garand straight in the faces of the gang members fighting it out in
front of his house. At first, Walt
doesn’t want anything to do with these people, Hmong immigrants who have
recently taken over the neighborhood, leading to intense gang violence. What’s more, his wife of fifty years has just
passed away, the rest of his family is eager to claim his prized 1972 Ford Gran
Torino, he’s sick and coughing up blood frequently, and he’s had enough of the
gang warfare in his neighborhood. Walt
shows absolutely no respect for these people, instead staying off to himself on
his front porch, drinking multiple cans of beer every day with his aging
Labrador Retriever, Daisy, by his side.
He swears and sneers at any one who walks by, and dismisses the efforts
of a young Catholic priest to get him to confess.
What’s ironic, even about these
particular circumstances, is that Walt is actually a likeable protagonist, but
only after we get to know him after a while.
The reasons owed to this are that we come to know his character so well
(undoubtedly due to the Eastwood persona which, over the years, we have to come
to readily identity with), and because he redeems himself by the second half of
the film when he makes the decision to defend a Hmong family from a group of
aggressive gangsters.
Gran Torino is a wholly gripping and
brutal drama, but more importantly, it’s a fitting eulogy to the acting/director
career of Eastwood. Even though the
ending feels rushed and hasty, Eastwood has acted in and directed in one of his
finest films in years. Eastwood is undoubtedly
one of the most successful and iconic film actors and directors of our time;
nearly everything he put into Gran Torino was successful. Yes, Gran Torino is harsh, serious, and
vulgar, and it’s for those reasons that it may drastically lose appeal to
audiences. But the story here is
something fresh, the characters are easy to identify with, and it’s nice to see
a 78-year old Eastwood as rough and tough as ever. Gran Torino isn’t at a level of flawlessness,
but Eastwood has succeeded in pulling off another fine film under his
belt. B+
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